Aestival Tide Read Online Free PDF Page B

hermaphrodites burned during their dream-trances; and beneath all of it the harsh acrid note of the periwinkle-blue lead powder that they used as the base for all their cosmetics. The powder was poisonous, of course, and after constant use many gynanders died quite young. This was not inadvertent, population control being a constant concern of the Orsinate. The hermaphrodites were sterile, but they still ate and took up space. And then of course they aged, and older hermaphrodites were ugly and therefore useless. The toxic lead powder was a fortuitous solution to this problem. Most gynanders knew the cosmetics were poisonous, but they were a vain lot and used them anyway. There was much competition for the business of dream-readings, and patrons were often influenced by an unusual face.
    Several of these faces turned to stare at Reive as she entered the hall.
    â€œYou heard that?” one called, her voice high and childish.
    â€œWe heard it,” Reive admitted. “You did too?”
    â€œWe all did,” Drusilla, the other gynander replied. She stood in a small knot of six or seven, some in kimonos, one half-dressed in scarves and thin gold-colored chains. Two of them, like Reive herself, were naked except for filmy pantaloons and wore no cosmetics. She stepped gingerly from her doorway and tiptoed down the hall to join them.
    â€œWhat was it?”
    â€œWe don’t know, Numatina said a bomb—”
    â€œ!”
    â€œâ€”but Charlless said it is the storms—”
    â€œThat’s what we thought,” Reive murmured triumphantly.
    â€œThere was another last night on Cherubim! The domes moved, we saw the walls shake—”
    â€œWell, we think it is Ucalegon,” Drusilla finished, her lips tight. The others whispered urgently, crossing their hands across their small bud-breasts. The ones who wore no makeup looked alike: white, heart-shaped faces with almond eyes, thin mouths and high rounded cheekbones. All had the same spare build, the same black hair, the same fluting voices; the same tiny breasts and the same small bulge between their legs where they hid their twin sexes. If you were to scrub their faces clean and line them up in a room, it would be difficult to tell any difference between them at all. That was the curse of their common origins within the crucibles of Dominations.
    But the hermaphrodites were too vain to spend their short lives being mistaken for each other. Thus their reliance on colored kohl wands and pots of red and silver rouge, their pride in a finely drawn mouth or eye, and also their dislike of Reive.
    The first gynander gazed at Reive through slitted eyes. Drusilla had already painted herself, the periwinkle powder deepening to lavender where she had highlighted her cheekbones, her eyes drawn into elaborate wings with a stippling of scarlet dots beneath them, a full scarlet mouth pouting over her narrow lips.
    â€œWe heard you were dead, Reive,” she pronounced.
    â€œWe heard that too,” another gynander chimed in. Over her pale blue mask she had drawn a series of stark curves in black, outlining her eyes and mouth. “We heard your patron killed you.”
    Reive drew herself up stiffly. She was taller than the other gynanders, and without makeup she looked different from them too—her face sharper, almost copper-colored where theirs were milk-white; her hair black but thin where the others had thick curling plaits; her eyes round and, worst of all, the forbidden color, where the others’ were black. She stared coldly at Drusilla.
    â€œWe are alive. We have a new patron,” she lied, “an aristocrat troubled by nightmares. A member of the Reception Committee,” she added grandly, and glanced to see if the others looked frightened.
    â€œOooh, Reive,” whispered a pallid creature shivering in a thin kimono. “Really, Reive?”
    â€œYou liar,” Drusilla spat; but Reive only tossed her