Stars Rise

LXIII. There Are No Words

Cristo demands, "Tell me exactly what's going on, or I am not going back again. I quit."

There just aren't any words, isn't that why I never told her? Why I had forbidden anyone to tell her? How could I possibly explain? Parts of it I would never understand and would Nova understand or would it kill her? A ghost of a ghost — is still dead. Who's Cristo to demand the truth? Well, he's the only one who gets to choose. Best to make it an informed decision.

I have no gnomon, which would make this more difficult, but Cristo's a good student — he should be able to manage without turning his teacher's brain to mush. "You're going to have to extract the memory from me," I say. "I'll instruct you."

#

100 Years Earlier

Ilan Potestas was dead less than twenty-four hours and Potestas Tower was still as a graveyard. Hundreds came for the wake but they didn't move much more than the boss in his open coffin, though they were more like ghosts than corpses: silent, yes, but not absent of their spirits, and they mourned — some even cried.

It was a grayscale parody of the party last night and most of the mourners had been party guests and witnesses to the murder. The wake was catered but no one touched the food; even if they were hungry all attempts were made not to reenact the celebration of the night before.

The clothes were white, black, gray — there were some veils but no masks. No music, no dancing, no speeches — no sound of any kind — and no stark indigo statue daring them all to try to petition him or duel words against him or in any way attempt to win or hold their own in a conversation with him, although the still man in the coffin was only slightly less verbose than the living man who had invited them all to a masquerade at his home one night before.

Stephen had no intention of breaking the silence, he didn't care who expected him to make a speech. He stood back from his father and let the guests pass in a procession in front of the casket and then come to him to quietly or often wordlessly offer condolences. He didn't want to talk to any of them but he tried not to seem rude; instead he put on the act of his life and pretended to be grieving deeply, incapable of words, insensible with the pain, hardly capable of acknowledging their kind expressions of sympathy when really he was just ignoring them and counting down the seconds to the board meeting at dusk when he would finally be able to cast his vote for Sunyin Aura, and even if his idol didn't become president or anything, Stephen would show his support and undermine President Solin's regime, Constellation would be one fiftieth closer to proper direction in the days ahead and either its leader would adapt and start to listen to Aura, or a year from now maybe she would lose her firm grip on the company as others started to listen.

Today was the cusp of a revolution and Stephen couldn't bring himself to be the least bit sad about it. He was a terrible actor but he could keep the smile from his face — at least as long as he didn't go too far into daydreams about revolutionizing and universalizing the use of star power and the technological breakthroughs that'll come along with more accessible licensing and education and less restrictive research and development policies and more freedoms and fewer rules and regulations.

He was in a good mood. Ancient Laio Cytheria emerged from the throng and scattered everyone else trying to express their commiseration but when she got to him she spoke very quietly and he leaned down toward her — she was a little bit shorter than Stephen — with a goodnatured encouraging smile before he remembered not to smile and made his face grave, or at least less cheerful. Cytheria told him his father was a good man, one of the best in the empire, and we're all doomed without him, and then she wandered off.