Free Zotikas: Episode 1: Clash of Heirs by Rob Storey, Tom Bruno Page B

it. The guy was sure to tip off a swarm of Cortatti thugs
once they got higher and closer to the palace. Kieler had to lose him now.
    The platform was jammed with partygoers. Two more
crowded trams pulled up to adjacent platforms and unloaded as Kieler
disembarked and suddenly he saw a way.
    Inelegant, he
thought, but effective.
    As the throng from the other trams moved toward the
exits and pressed around him, Kieler waited until the flow of traffic had put
several bodies between him and his tail and then, in a moment where two taller
men blocked line of sight, he dropped down to all fours and crawled.
    He wound his way through the legs of the crowd over to
another tram waiting with its doors open and scuttled onto it, keeping his head
below the window level. The empty tram seemed to be waiting for a set departure
time, which was fortunate.
    After half a minute, Kieler poked an eye up from
behind a seat and looked across the platform. Most of the current wave of
people had passed and his stoic tail was easy to spot, standing, halfway up the
stairs, looking down and around the momentarily less busy platform. Kieler
imagined the man shrugging, thought he saw the agent smirk, then turned and
continued dispassionately up the stairs.
    There were other exits from the platforms up through
the hub to Plaza Floraneva and Kieler found one. He climbed stairs through the
interior of the black tower. The line of station doors emptied onto the center
of the west side of the triangular plaza. Kieler hovered around the
northernmost door and looked across the other station doors and east over the
plaza. There was no sign of his enigmatic shadow.
    Just to be sure, he climbed to the second tier of
shops, found a quiet alcove and scouted the plaza below. Plaza Floraneva was jammed
with people. In the corners of the triangular plaza were monumental buildings
constructed when Avertori was in its prime, flourishing both culturally and
economically. All three structures were of such architectural magnificence that
it was a marvel of complacency how well the throngs of partiers could ignore
them.
     South, and to his right, was the seldom-used
theater, the Oraflora, named by the house he would be assuming leadership of
this evening, House Ortessi.
    The Oraflora was open tonight. Run by the Cortattis,
who had taken it over when the babe Orlazrus Ortessi went missing (presumed
burned to death), the once famous playhouse was now infamous. Anyone older than
the takeover assumed the Cortattis were purposely discrediting the usurped
property. The play tonight was “ The War Tribes of Ardan ”. Where once
House Ortessi had accurately dramatized historical events, the Cortatti plays
tended to butcher history—with the emphasis on butchery.
    The theater itself still presented a dramatic façade;
its three vertical marquees stretched skyward with luzhril spotlights already
ablaze. When the sun went fully down, the bold marquees would cast stark
shadows into the sky, contrasting the brilliantly lit marquees with the
darkness beyond. But the performance itself would be little attended, Kieler
knew.
    Even less attended, in fact, deserted, would be
the edifice directly across the tri from him in the southeast corner, the
cathedral. Kieler didn’t know much of its original purpose—Movus hadn’t taught
him anything about it—but of the three corner buildings, it was the most
magnificent. Ornate, double flying buttresses adorned each of the six corners
of the structure, each buttress and the corner itself topped with escalating
towers, eighteen in all. A latticework dome topped the main nave and glittered
with oranges and reds as the setting sun refracted through the crystalline
panels.
    It had been sealed off for as long as Kieler had
known. One day, he would like to see the inside.
    The final structure, burgeoning with people, was the
Arena to his left. House Cortatti ran this place too, but in contrast to
Oraflora, they ran the Arena extremely well—from a