Walter Jon Williams - Aristoi

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With thanks and gratitude to Sage Walker, Rebecca Meluch, Wil-Ham F. Wu, Melinda Snodgrass, Pati

Nagle, Sally Gwylan, Pat McGraw, Salomon Montoya, Karen McCue, Mr. Bill Packer, Laura J. Mixon,

Judith Tarr.

Note: If you purchased this book without a cover you should be aware that this book is stolen

property. It was reported as "unsold and destroyed" to the publisher, and neither the author nor

the publisher has received any payment for this "stripped book "

This is a work of fiction. All the characters and events portrayed in this book are fictitious,

and any resemblance to real people or events is purely coincidental.

ARISTOI

Cover art by Jim Burns

A Tor Book

Published by Tom Doherty Associates, Inc.

175 Fifth Avenue

New Yoric, N.Y 10010

Tor* is a registered trademark of Tom Doherty Associates, Inc.

ISBN: 0-812-51409-2

Library of Congress Catalog Card Number. 92-25452

Fust edition: September 1992

First mass market printing: September 1993

Printed in the United States of America 0987654321

Note

Readers are encouraged to pronounce the foreign words any way that appeals to them, but those

interested in the little sqoiggles over the words might consider the following: The accent marks

indicate nothing more than the stress over the syllable. Therdpontes is accented on the second

syllable, skiagenos in the third. The horizontal bar over the final vowel of some words (dairrion,

therdpon) indicates a long vowel. Note that in the plural (daimones, therdpontes) the vowel turns

short.

The words taken from Chinese are transcribed in Pin-yin, not Wade-Giles, and are therefore

pronounced more or less as the English-speaking reader finds them, with only two exceptions: the

ZK in "Zhenling" is pronounces like the j in "justice," and the word qi is pronounced "chee."

As a final note, I should point out that Aristos and Aristoi have their accent on the first

syllable.

Chapter 1

ANIMAL TAMER: Walk in, walk in to my menagerie Full of life and cruelty.

At Graduation, every five or seven or ten years, the Aris-toi celebrated in Persepolis. For the

most part they celebrated themselves.

Persepolis, in the Realized World, was an interesting artifact. It shaded by degrees into

"Persepolis," the real place becoming, through its illusory/electronic deeps and towers, an ever-

flexible, ever-unfolding megadimensional dream.

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Persepolis, the place, had been reconstructed on its original Persian floor plan, and sat on its

reconstructed plain at the meeting of the reconstructed Pulvar and Kor, where it took its place as

the (largely symbolic) capital of a reconstructed Earth2. The city was inhabited only a few days a

year, when Pan Wengong, the most senior of the Aristoi, convened the Terran Sessions. Behind the

City of a Hundred Columns loomed Kuh-e-Rahmat, the Mount of Mercy, its grey flanks a contrast to

the bright gold, vermilion, ivory, and turquoise that accentuated the city. To the hewn tombs of

Achaemenid

WALTER JON WILLIAMS

AR1STOI

kings carved into the side of the mountain were added those of many Aristoi, laid to rest in their

capital beside the descendants of Kurush the Great, whose tenuous spirits were presumed to be

flattered by the comparison. Atop the mountain itself, surrounded by a grove of cypress, was the

gold monument to the lost Captain Yuan, a place of homage and worship.

"Persepolis," the dream, was a far more interesting place. Most of the people who came here did

not do so in the flesh but through the oneirochronon, and the two palaces superimposed on one

another in ways both intricate and obscure. Earthz's archons and senators strolled along the

corridors, holding conversations with people others could not see. Corridors that dead-ended in

reality possessed doors and branches in the oneirochronic world. Some led to palaces, dominions,

grottos, and fantasies that did not exist on Earth2, or indeed anywhere, but were instead the

special habitats of oneirochronic Aristoi, some of whose bodies were long in the grave. In these

palaces the inhabitants danced and discussed and feasted and loved—there had long been competition

among them to design the most dazzling sensual experiences for one another, delightful unrealities

more striking, more "real," than anything experienced in the flesh.

To Persepolis, the dream, came Gabriel. Demons buzzed insistently in his head, but he kept them on

a tight rein.

For Persepolis was a place where demons, as well as dreams, were shared.

A few days before his arrival in Persepolis, in a shimmering predawn on Illyricum, Gabriel glided

through his gardens like a ghost. Perfume rose at his footsteps, lingered in the still air.

Sometimes he wanted simply to be himself: his daimones were asleep or busy with their own

projects, and all was peaceful, as perfect as the plans of this garden he had once built in the

oneirochronon before consummating it in the Realized World.

Rectangles cut the solemn sky as solar panels in the Resi-

dence, the Red Lacquer Gallery, and the Autumn Pavilion slid from concealment and deployed to

catch the first rays of dawn on their surfaces, layers of matte-black photoreactive polymer woven

with pure gold. The rising sun turned the gold grids to scarlet flame.

An English bullterrier, Manfred, trotted silently at Gabriel's heels, absorbing in its own fashion

the dawn, the garden, the perfume. The terrier had implanted as a nurse and in another few moments

would be assisting Gabriel with some minor surgery.

Gabriel climbed the cloudy opal steps of the Autumn Pavilion and stepped into the interior. He

seated himself, facing the entrance, on a bench of a black soft-crystal ceramic that reacted to

his body heat, yielded and conformed to his shape. Manfred curled up at his feet and yawned. An

early bird gave a tentative call.

"Open," Gabriel said.

Silent shutters folded themselves away, inviting the mother-of-pearl dawn. Flower perfume crept

into the still building. The Autumn Pavilion featured rooms designed by each of Gabriel's primary

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daimones, and this room was Horus's contribution: logically eight-sided, the walls covered with

Illyrian Workshop ceramic tiles in aspen-yellow and maple-crimson, each featuring a hand-painted

harvest scene from preindustrial times. Benevolent Demeter gazed down on all this activity from a

ceiling fresco set amid a classic rococo plaster frieze. Tables set beneath the windows were

unassuming wrought-iron. Antique vases held dried flowers to the nonexistent wind.

There was a self-portrait in oils by Horus on one wall, Gabriel's pointed face unusually grave and

balanced beneath the curling mass of copper hair, brows a little knit but on the whole approving

of what he saw. The startling blue of the eyes was a little deemphasized, the wise epicanthal

folds pronounced.

Gabriel watched, absorbing the sight, as the spinning globe dropped morning into the garden.

Photons' touch

WALTER JON WILLIAMS

caused palati plants to fire pollen from their tube'shaped flowers. Floating particles glowed in

the light of the rising sun.

Dawn, in her golden sandals, Gabriel thought, after Sappho. Whatever thought came next drifted

away with the palati pollen before he could catch it.

He was going to impregnate the Black-Eyed Ghost, his lover. He thought for a moment about that,

about gametes floating like pollen, about bits of himself set adrift in the universe.

His various selves seemed at peace with the notion.

The dog yawned again. The light, as the sun rose, turned bluer, more precise. Reality took on a

hard, photographic edge, qualities for which thousands of artists came to this system, this

planet. Illyricum, the World of Clear Light.

Gabriel's world. He had built it, designed its effects, contributed to its architecture. Issued

decrees to its population, at least when he felt like it, which wasn't often. He had, in fact,

owned the whole thing, till he'd given most of it away.

Illyricum was one of several worlds that Gabriel had designed.

He liked to think he hadn't made too many mistakes with any of them.

For the opening-night reception in Persepolis Gabriel dressed his skiagenos in a forest-green

jacket covered with gold brocade, tight breeches of a lighter green with Hungarian-style laces on

the thigh-tops, black reflective Hessian boots with gold tassels. The cravat was pinned with a

diamond, gem-stones ornamented the fingers, the hair was drawn back with diamond-and-enamel clips.

Atop his head Gabriel put a soft bonnet with a diamond pin and dashing feather. He worked some

long moments getting his scent precisely the way he wanted it, just the proper combination, a hint

of spice and intrigue.

The finery was not purely ornamental. None of it existed in the Realized World—the outfit was

purely oneiro-chronic—but it all served as advertising for Gabriel's pro-

gramming skills. The stiif touch of the brocade had to be plausibly different from the soft feel

of the hat, the tickle of the feather, the pliant mass of copper hair, the warm press of Gabriel's

flesh. The reflective look of the polished boots was different from the hard, depthless glitter of

the stones on his fingers, the cheerful liquid highlights in his eyes, the soft weave of the

jacket and the complex patterned loops of the glowing gold brocade. The tassels on the boots were

reflected in the boots themselves and cast complex shadows as they danced.

It all had to be not simply real, but finer, more real, than reality itself. True reality was

often overlooked in its more exact details, and Gabriel did not want to be overlooked. The careful

programming put into Gabriel's appearance, the slight exaggeration built into its visual and

tactile dimensions, was meant to give it an impact somewhat greater than the real—the

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Realized—thing.

For the occasion Gabriel flew up to where his yacht, the Pyrrho, waited. He restrained himself

with tethers in a null-gee room and had his face constantly scanned by microwatt laser so that his

real expression could be transmitted to the skiagenos and that its facial expressions would be

Gabriel's own. In zero-gee he could move his real body in synch with the skiagenos in order to

enhance his illusion and the conviction of his performance.

The most important people in the Logarchy would be watching. He didn't intend to disappoint them.

Gabriel entered the oneirochronon and told his reno to establish a tachline link to Earth2. He

materialized his skiagenos in the virtual apartment he'd built in the dream Persepolis and looked

about him. The furniture, the hangings, all were as he remembered. Shadow-servants in the shapes

of fairy-tale bipedal animals moved toward him, triggered by his appearance. An oneirochronic

quintet were frozen in one corner, awaiting only the command to play.

Gabriel inspected the servants' livery and made certain it suited their somewhat inhuman shapes.

They hadn't been

WALTER JON WILLIAMS

animals at the last Graduation—their shapes (orange tabby, striped Olivian tetrapus, bright-eyed

otter) were a more recent whimsy. He made certain the animals' fur possessed the proper warmth,

softness, and resilience—there was even a slight crackle of static as he stroked them—then passed

on to the quintet. He triggered their action, gauged and adjusted the tone. The interpretation had

been borrowed from his own Residence chamber musicians. The musicians were dressed in eighteenth-

century Viennese court dress, white wigs and all.

Everything seemed ready. Gabriel froze the action and then left the suite through carven jade

doors.

The doors led to an underground corridor in the palace of Darius I that existed both in reality

and in the oneiro-chronic Persepolis. The first person Gabriel saw he recognized: Therapon

Protarchon Akwasibo, who had served under Gabriel decades before, when Gabriel was a very new,

very young Aristos.

As of tomorrow, Akwasibo would be made an Ariste herself.

Her lanky body was clothed in a dress of diamond-shaped mirrors. Invisible spotlights seemed to

bounce off the reflective surfaces, casting gold reflections on the walls. Her Ethiopian eyes were

rimmed with kohl; her long neck was as supple as that of Nefertiti (and scarcely exaggerated at

all, as Gabriel remembered). There was another diamond-shaped mirror set flat in her forehead, and

two more dangled from her ears.

"Greetings, Gabriel Aristos." Assuming a Posture of Formal Regard.

Gabriel raised a hand. "Hail, newly immortal."

She smiled. Gabriel embraced her and kissed her hello. Her dream-breath smelled of oranges, and

her dream-lips seemed to vibrate slightly, a not unpleasant effect.

"Are you on your way to the reception?" Gabriel asked.

"Point of fact, I was on my way to see you. The city's reno told me you'd arrived and I came right

over."

Gabriel lifted an eyebrow. "Is your business that ur-gent?"

"Depends on your definition of urgent. We can walk to the reception if you like."

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"Take my arm."

"A pleasure."

They strolled up the corridor. The wall frescoes were a translucent sea blue, and dolphins, gold

and white and deep azure, frolicked thereon. The warm Persian wind brought the fresh scent of

cypress. It was autumn here, and somehow-that sense had been translated into the oneirochronon.

Good programmers, here.

Pan Wengong employed only the best.

"I wanted simply to thank you," Akwasibo said. "I think you were the Aristos who taught me the

most."

"I was dreadfully inexperienced. Under thirty, for heaven's sake, and I wasn't that much older

than you."

"You taught me while you were teaching yourself. Of course it took me over forty years before I

could really put it all in practice."

"But you'll make many fewer mistakes than I."

"The only thing I can say with confidence is that they probably won't be the same mistakes."

The sound of wind chimes floated on the wind, and then the unreal sound of a reed flute. Gabriel

and Akwasibo turned toward the Apadana, the great hall of Darius I.

Over the dream-city drifted a dream-moon, half full in a mild blue sky. The real Luna after which

it was modeled had long been more Realized than most places—its interior had now been transformed,

molecule by molecule, into a huge data store, one of many that made up the Hyperlogos, the

universal data pool. Save for that under the Seal of the Aris-toi, almost every bit and byte of it

was accessible, something that contributed more to peace in the Logarchy than all the social

engineers in history.

"I'm a bit nervous," Akwasibo confessed. "What sort of thing goes on at these receptions?"

WALTER JON WILLIAMS

"Pleasure. Display. Rivalry. Intrigue." Gabriel smiled. "Everything that makes life worth living."

The palati pollen floated through Illyricum's breathless dawn air. Gabriel rose from the bench,

and Manfred picked himself up, stretched, yawned yet again, and followed Gabriel from the

pavilion. Fading motes of dawn danced in Gabriel's path as he returned to the main building of the

Residence.

As he walked past the Shadow Cloister he heard a mumbled, weary chant, and remembered that he'd

received a report that the Therapon Dekarchon Yaritomo, the demiourgos in charge of tax assessment

for one of Illyricum's provinces, had announced he would ere long attempt the ritual of Kavandi.

Gabriel told Manfred to wait for him and stepped quietly through a turquoise-encrusted archway to

watch the ordeal.

Yaritomo was a stocky man not quite seventeen, a recent graduate of Lincoln College at Illyricum

University. He had performed well at the duties that Gabriel had set him in order to acquaint him

with the basics of civil administration. Reports from the Psychological Department indicated that

Yaritomo's personality had shown a tendency to avoid fragmentation by milder techniques, and

Kavandi was his own choice.

Yaritomo was naked beneath the metal frame he had strapped to his body. The frame held over fifty

stainless-steel spears, all surgically sharp, all pointed inward to his skin.

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Walter Jon Williams - Aristoi

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