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(Worldbreaker Saga 2) The Empire Ascendant
|
Kameron Hurley
|
[
"fantasy",
"LGBT",
"science fiction fantasy"
] |
[] |
Chapter 11
|
The way back to Oma's temple was swift. Ahkio and Caisa went by Line. The stories from Liona would spread. They would get worse when people found out he'd sent some scullery drudge from Dorinah to the harbor to help with defenses. An omajista's place was there, at their most vulnerable point, but it would make her look just like the divine thing she said she was, and that worried him.
When he arrived, Ora Una, the gatekeeper, told him the Tai Mora emissary was in the garden. Ahkio crossed the foyer with Caisa to the entrance to the back garden. His stride was longer, and she skipped to keep up.
Ahkio followed the winding path through the garden. Most of the greenery was still dormant, waiting for the first kiss of spring. Caisa hurried beside him, her breath crystallizing in the cool mid-morning air. A mist had descended, and still clung to the bases of the trees. The central fountain, its centerpiece a massive three-pronged claw that mirrored the shape of the temple, had been drained. It stood still and silent, its crown lost to the mist.
"Is this some emissary from the south?" Caisa said, rubbing her shoulders. He realized only then that he had given her no indication of who the emissary was.
Ahkio rounded the fountain and went up a broad set of stone steps to a great living structure of bowed bonsa saplings draped in withered wisteria. A slim figure stood beneath it, gazing out toward the great chasm that held the Fire River in its mouth.
"Hello," Ahkio said.
The figure turned. She was a slight woman with a broad grin. Her dark hair was cut strangely, as if hacked with a hatchet. She wore a long blue coat of what looked like wool and died fireweed cord.
"You must be the Kai," the emissary said. "I know your face. I am Hofsha Sorek."
Caisa made a sound behind him. Ahkio turned. Caisa had stopped at the base of the steps, hand on the hilt of her weapon.
He glanced back at Hofsha. Hofsha's grin had faded. "Do the two of you know each other?" Ahkio asked.
"I have known this little boy since he was a pup," Hofsha said.
"You've mistaken Caisa for someone else, then. Caisa is a woman, not a boy."
"Not where I'm from," Hofsha said. "Where I'm from you get a pronoun at birth and you keep it, like a civilized person."
"How does she know you, Caisa?"
Caisa's mouth moved, but no sound came out.
"Caisa?" Ahkio said.
Ahkio felt a chill. I wasn't sure she was on our side, Liaro had said, back when the council house in Raona had burned. But Caisa had hacked apart the man who had wanted to take Ahkio's life. She stood by him with Liaro when he was ill and brought him to Kuallina. Was she really Tai Mora or some Tai Mora's twin?
"Wait for me inside, Caisa," Ahkio said.
"I can explain," Caisa said. "You don't want to be alone with her!"
"I suspect Hofsha isn't here for murder," Ahkio said. "We'll speak later."
Caisa ran down the steps and through the garden.
Ahkio regarded Hofsha. "She's one of yours, then? How long ago did you put her here?"
"Not at all," Hofsha said. "He's a runaway from our parajista ranks. We sent the hounds after him, but had very little luck. Now I know why."
"Hounds?"
"It's how we retrieve our people," Hofsha said. "Deserters, and the like."
"I expect you have a lot of those."
"Less than you think." Hofsha smiled.
Ahkio rose to the bait, and came up the rest of the steps. He stood beside her, his elbow placed a few inches from hers. "You come here alone, ungifted, to parley?"
"My gift is not with the satellites," Hofsha said, stirring her fingers in the air. "My gift is with people. Moving them. Managing them. Mitigating harm to them."
"What do you need here that you can get from me without blood?"
"A peaceful surrender," Hofsha said. "I've come here to save you from a very prolonged death by starvation and disease. I've seen it happen to a hundred and twenty-seven countries across three worlds. My Empress, my Kai, always gets what she wants. It's up to you to decide in what way it's delivered to her."
"You haven't fought us before."
Hofsha patted the railing. "I'm afraid we need your temples."
A fist of fear squeezed Ahkio's heart. The heart of Oma's seat. The riddle of the temples.
"What would you need the temples for?" Ahkio asked.
"My Empress is weary, she will be the first to admit, but also merciful. It doesn't please us to kill so many. We'll take the temples, and you'll all keep your lives."
"What will you do with the temples, Hofsha?"
"What do you care, as long as you have your lives? I promise you, Kai, I am offering you a way out of madness and bloodshed. So much you can't even fathom it. What do you have left here? Twenty thousand people? Thirty thousand? Hardly a drop in a pond. The Dhai left in this world just barely register as a people."
"What else?" He remembered Kirana killing herself before her shadow could do it, ensuring he ascended to Kai before her shadow moved in. It was why she waited until he was safely inside Oma's Temple before perishing. Did they know how that worked yet? Or would that wait until they'd already come in and discovered that the new Kirana had to be Kai to unlock the temple's heart? Would they ask him to open the way for her? And when they activated the temples to do… whatever they did, what would happen to the rest of the world? The world broke when Oma rose. Ahkio suspected the temples played a large part in that.
"Oh, there's one more thing," Hofsha said, "but it's a trifle. There's a woman we're looking for. I believe you know her. Yisaoh Alais Garika. If you could assist us in finding her, we'd think most kindly of you."
"If I had any idea about where to find Yisaoh, I'd happily tell you where she was." Right up until Ahkio said it aloud, he believed it. But he was not that man.
"Well, it will be appreciated. What do you say to our offer, Kai? It's been some time since I came to the leader of a country with such a fine offer. It's usually very bad news."
"What are the usual terms?"
"She lets a lover, a child, live. Maybe spares a few dozen close kin, all exiled."
"And the rest?"
"The rest die," Hofsha said.
"And these people you speak to, they agree to that? They give up the lives of their entire countries to save a few dozen close kin?"
"The first few didn't," she said, "the others learned. You know what choice to make."
"I know what choice you'd like me to make, and they are entirely different things."
Hofsha exhaled, sending out a puff of breath into the air. She seemed to marvel at it as it dissipated. "Shall I tell you a little story, Kai?"
"I'm not fond of stories."
"That's not what I heard. I heard you have a love of a fine tale from The Book of Oma. That's what it's called here, isn't it? Oma's Book. Ours is The Book of Dhai."
"Why spare me?" he said. "You sent people here to kill many others, and you're asking after Yisaoh, but you haven't killed me. Why?"
"I'm only telling you what my Empress bid." She pulled something from the deep pocket of her coat – a soft, floppy hat. She pulled it on. If not for the dark color, and her somber attire, and the substance of her message, it might look ridiculous.
"Good day, Kai. I wish you the best." She trotted down the steps, paused at the bottom, and looked back. "I'll say this. I've watched a good many people die in my time, and seen a lot of lovely places burn. I'd hate to see you gutted out here, and all these lovely gardens turned to dust." She began to whistle.
Ahkio watched until the mist swallowed her.
In the temples, they taught a class each year on strategy and tactics, mostly based on records of the final battles the Dhai fought with the Saiduan. Those fights were bitter ones. The Dhai ate one another not merely as a show of reverence, but as a means of survival.
They had been forced to do any number of terrified and desperate things, at the end, because they knew their fate. They would be routed, and their children turned into slaves. It was a known end. They fought hard because they knew there was no other alternative they could live with.
Ahkio went to the rail and listened to the eerie murmuring of the river below, made alien in its cadence by the fog. The Tai Mora were like that. Some distorted version of themselves. Not real people. Not truly Dhai. If they were Dhai, they would not propose to slaughter them all in their beds.
Ahkio left the rail and headed back to the temple, in search of Liaro. Not for council, but for the comfort of one known. He wanted someone to take him into his arms and tell him there was some other choice not constructed by a foreign army, even if he was too old to believe in children's stories.
|
(Worldbreaker Saga 2) The Empire Ascendant
|
Kameron Hurley
|
[
"fantasy",
"LGBT",
"science fiction fantasy"
] |
[] |
Chapter 12
|
Lilia had smelled the sea for much of her childhood, but never set foot in it. The great rocky spur of land she grew up on had no safe path to the sea, so she had settled for viewing it from afar. As she came over the low rise of scrubland and saw the vast gates of Asona Harbor, she realized she was not likely to set foot in it now, either. The gates were easily the same height as the walls of Liona, maybe higher. She told herself that was all right. Revenge did not require a dip in the sea.
Lilia, Gian and Taigan had left the refugees ensconced safely at Kuallina and kept on northward to the harbor where they were met by Alhina and two of her male relatives, both smart looking men who did not go so far as to carry weapons, but who held themselves like people who would not be afraid to stand between Alhina and an aggressor. Alhina was a short, plump woman with a kind young face that put Lilia in mind of Kalinda Lasa, which made Lilia feel far more kindly toward her than she probably should have. The day was cool, and, as they trekked along the road, Lilia saw that spring had indeed come to Dhai in full force now. Many plants stayed green during the winter, but those that went dormant had begun to unfurl, revealing new green shoots and tender leaves and spines.
Now they drew up their mounts short. Ahead of them, a sea of floxflass covered the road.
"Curse this spring," Alhina said. She took a long drink from a flask at her hip.
Lilia glanced at Taigan. "I'll race you," she said.
"I will win," Taigan said.
Lilia urged her bear into a sprint across the floxflass field, and raised her fist high as she called on Oma. All around, her, the field of floxflass burned, sending sickly-sweet smoke into the air. Taigan galloped past her, murmuring words of encouragement in Saiduan to her bear. The sanisi gained the lead, and where she pointed her fingers out across the teeming sea of floxflass, the little tendrils burst into flame.
They dashed madly together for nearly a mile, burning and urging their bears on. At the end of the floxflass sea, Lilia reined in her bear and turned to look back at the scorched path, and she laughed.
Taigan pulled up beside her, grinning. "You are so easily amused," Taigan said.
"I cleaned pots my whole life," Lilia said.
"Fair point."
Lilia gazed up into the great trees standing in matted clumps amid the farmland all around them. "The trees were grander," she said.
"More dangerous."
"Grander," Lilia said. "I'll race you back!" She galloped back to meet their party.
Alhina and her male escorts looked at her askance when she arrived, she and her bear covered in char from the floxflass, but that just made Lilia grin harder. As she fell back into the procession with them, she coughed. It turned into a wheezing hack.
Gian moved her mount closer. "Do you need your mahuan?"
Lilia shook her head. She'd had a fit the night before, too, without it being triggered by the usual things – frights, too much exercise. She suspected she was more exhausted than she felt. Sometimes, after holding Oma beneath her skin for hours, she felt invincible. The letdown when she finally released it was starting to become more pronounced.
Taigan finally caught up to her, and fell in beside her. "Take it anyhow," Taigan said.
"You aren't my mother."
"Stop acting like a child who needs one, then," Taigan said. "You natter like a bird."
"You fuss like a hen."
"You wheeze like a dying wren."
"You scheme like a raven."
Taigan puffed out her chest. "Thank you."
Lilia motioned to Gian for the powder. Gian added it to a small water bladder and handed it over. It took several minutes more of silent riding before the powder began to take effect. The constriction eased. All this power, and what did it get her? It didn't fix her labored breathing. And it wouldn't fix her leg or her hand, unless she chopped them off and had Taigan regrow them. Power over everything, the whole world, but not herself.
"The world has a bad sense of humor," Lilia said.
"I often think the same," Taigan said.
"Your body doesn't fail you."
Taigan laughed. "My body does what it pleases."
Lilia continued to drink and watched the harbor gates as they approached. The road here should have been bustling with traffic to and from the harbor. Numerous public houses lined the roads, mostly eateries and way houses. She saw two tea houses with broad green awnings. The floxflass on the road must have grown up overnight. No stretch of road this vital would have been left unattended longer than that.
"Does your family live on the docks?" Lilia asked Alhina. She was not much good at small talk, but suspected talking about much of anything related to herself would become problematic quickly.
"Usually," Alhina said. She took another nip from her flask. "But we've moved to the gates. There are storage and living quarters inside the gatehouses, and all along the inside."
"How far do the gates go? To the cliffs?" Gian asked.
"Yes, they span the entirety of the harbor. Faith Ahya and Hahko anticipated raids from Saiduan and Dorinah. It was among the first structures they built."
Taigan said, "And you're running patrols along the cliffs?"
"Of course," Alhina said. "We have six squads patrolling the west where the wall ends and the black cliffs begin, and two more in the east, which is less ground to cover. It's not as far from here to the mountains, going east."
"Jistas with them?" Taigan asked.
"Each squad is eight militia, with three jistas. A coterie."
"One of each type?" Gian asked. "Is that what that means?"
"Yes," Lilia said, glad to show she knew something.
"Let's get up onto the top of the wall," Taigan said. "I'm eager to see how this looks from another vantage."
Lilia gazed at the massive, twisted wall in the distance, blocking off the view from the sea. She was very interested as well, but for a different reason.
She wanted to see the people she intended to destroy.
Taigan came up the steps onto the great harbor wall just behind Lilia. The warm wind from the Haraeo Sea hit Taigan square in the face. She smelled the changing season in the wind. It was the same wind that had blown across Saiduan. She tasted salt and something bitter, and memorable – the acidic tang of the red tide, the kelp the Tai Mora had brought with them to assault living walls. She came up to the heavy rail with Lilia, and put her hands on the massive tirajista-trained wood. It was not dead. She saw greenery winding up the outside of it.
"What's at the core of this wall?" Taigan asked. "It's all living, like this?"
"The gates are," Alhina said. "I think the wall was trained over a stone core."
"Dead stone?"
"Is there another kind?"
"Sometimes," Taigan said. She ignored the girl's dubious look.
Two great piers jutted out over the water for a thousand feet into the surging sea, a necessary thing for a harbor when the pull of the moons resulted in extreme tides that swept the water out for miles. She had heard of families swept away by the force of the tides in little coastal towns in Saiduan. Whole villages were sometimes swallowed when the fractious heavens changed the ebb and flow of the tides.
For all the Dhai's cowardice and unreadiness for war, they did have two very good defenses. What concerned her was that they relied on them so completely, to the detriment of their army, the construction of their cities, even the ways they organized themselves. Without a hierarchical structure to amass and order armies, they would be little better than a mob with pointed sticks and a few uncoordinated parajistas blowing around clouds before being wrapped in the breath of some jista on the other side. The Tai Mora would be coordinated… like their ships.
She stared out at the ships clotting the harbor. They barricaded the bowl of the blue bay. It was nothing like the number she'd seen at Aaraduan. These were fifty across and three deep, hardly a massive force. But Dhai had no navy, and only one harbor. That made fifty more than enough. What puzzled her was that the Tai Mora had not yet deployed anything against the gates. What were they waiting for? She saw bubbling red mist along the front line, and suspected they already had sufficient omajista barricades up to protect themselves from a gifted attack.
"Have they parleyed with your Kai?" Taigan asked.
"They sent an emissary," Alhina said. "That's why the Kai went to the temple first."
"Is that usual?" Lilia asked Taigan, "for them to talk first?"
"They did with us. In the beginning."
"They stopped?"
Taigan snorted. "They wanted us to deliver tribute in bodies. If we were going to give them bodies, bird, we'd make them fight for them."
"The Kai will not give them bodies," Lilia said.
"Then we best prepare," Taigan said. "You see the omajista barricade?"
"I see it."
Alhina stepped to the rail and squinted out at the ships. "What sorts of jistas do they have out there?"
"All of them," Taigan said. "If they've come at you the way they did us, they'll have eight coteries on every ship."
"Twenty-four jistas on every ship?" Lilia said, as if Taigan had told her she could lay eggs.
"You'll need to empty out the senior Oras from every temple," Taigan said, "and deploy them here. You think your Kai will give leave for that? You think they'll obey if he does?"
"Why wouldn't they?" Lilia said.
"Under the Kai? After fighting a civil war?"
"It wasn't like that at all," Alhina said. "I was here. You weren't."
"People died," Taigan said. "I thought you took that seriously. We certainly take death seriously in Saiduan."
"We are not like Saiduan."
"I'm sure you take great comfort in saying that," Taigan said. "The reality is that if that man has any hint of illegitimacy about him, if even one senior leader does not respect him, you are lost. You may be lost regardless, but it will certainly happen much faster."
"Let's speak to the Kai about it," Lilia said.
"In my experience, young men with power don't take kindly to advice."
"This is Dhai."
"Men are the same everywhere."
"It's a good thing there are a lot of women here, then."
Taigan grimaced. Dhai pronouns were cumbersome things; too many to remember, and trying to use their ungendered pronoun was uncomfortable. Ataisa was not ungendered, it was a gender in and of itself. Stripping away gendered markers in every conversation still grated. There were three types of people as far as Taigan was concerned, and what she defaulted to in any one anecdote depended upon which anecdote it was. Dhai people never understood the nuance.
"Let me take you to my cousin Mohrai," Alhina said. "We can address this with her."
Taigan waved at them. "You go. I want to watch the boats."
"For what?" Lilia said.
"For myself."
Taigan leaned out over the rail after they left. She gazed at row after row of ships. What bothered her was why they had come to Dhai at all. Why not selectively murder the few key people who were the doubles of those on the other side, and simply turn Saiduan into their new home? Why come down to Grania at all? What was there to gain here? People called Taigan monstrous, often, and she had done terrible things. She recalled smashing open the face of the woman who trained her, and flaying men alive for cheating her. She had destroyed people in every way they could be destroyed, but she always did it with purpose. These people were, if nothing else, calculated in the way they attacked. So why now?
She heard a scuffle behind her, and looked back to see Lilia limping toward her.
"Bored already?" Taigan asked.
"Mohrai is busy. I sent Gian down to eat while we wait for Mohrai."
"I'm sure she depleted much of her stores on the way here," Taigan said.
"It's like she's storing up for winter," Lilia said.
"Perhaps she's the smartest of us all."
Lilia came to the parapet. Put her arms on the wall. "I was thinking, Taigan."
"Always dangerous."
"If they wanted to destroy us, we'd be dead now. They've come for something here, haven't they? Something they don't want to burn down or risk being lost."
Taigan smirked at that. Yes, this was the same little girl who played strategy games in the woods, after all. She wished she'd had time to make her some great general, an asset to Saiduan. Now she wasn't sure what she was doing with this girl. Perhaps prolonging the inevitable. Soon Maralah would do more than just send notes that Taigan refused to answer. Soon, she would use the ward. She would call Taigan back, and there was nothing she could do to stop that when the time came.
"Oh! Taigan!" Lilia held up her arms, and Taigan saw little creatures scurrying up her shoulders and nuzzling her neck. They were baby tree gliders. Taigan saw their nest now, burrowed into the living wall. Lilia laughed at snatched at the little creatures, trying to pat their tiny heads, but they were fast, furiously fast.
Taigan regarded her a long moment while dozen of baby tree gliders scurried across her shoulders and then back down her arms. Several leapt from her head and rushed back into the nest. She still had two of them perched in her palm. She cooed at them.
"They're so beautiful," Lilia said. "See how cute they are?" She pressed her face closer to her final two friends, and they leapt from her palm and ran back to the nest with the others. She laughed again, a sound so lovely Taigan forgot for a moment she was ugly and so very broken in so many ways.
"How long did it take you to figure that out?" Taigan asked. "About the Tai Mora."
Lilia's smile faded, but did not disappear. Taigan suspected she enjoyed her strategy for revenge almost as much as the tree gliders. "I considered it on the way here. But when I saw the boats… I knew."
"Not a fool bird," Taigan said.
"You think the Kai knows?"
"I think the Kai still believes he can talk his way out of this."
"Surely not."
"You watch him. Remember he'll do whatever it takes to avoid bloodshed. If you know that about him, you know his weakness."
"He didn't order us killed or turned back," Lilia said. "He could have."
"He wants to preserve who you are."
"He wants to save this idea he has of himself." Lilia's jaw firmed. "But the ideas we have of ourselves are foolish. He'll learn that."
"Indeed he will."
Taigan wondered, for the first time, if she was helping to make a savior or a monster.
She had such a plain, serious face. Taigan still worried about Gian's influence. A handsome woman like Gian, raised a dajian, would be drawn to power like a moth to claw lilies. Taigan suspected Gian had fucked the wrong person in Dorinah, or perhaps the right one, and it had all gone bad. But a Dhai this young wouldn't see a path to power through fucking. The older ones, perhaps, used sex and kinship to form strong ties. But not like Dorinahs did. Not like the Saiduan.
Such a peculiar little country, Dhai. It would be a shame to see it burn.
|
(Worldbreaker Saga 2) The Empire Ascendant
|
Kameron Hurley
|
[
"fantasy",
"LGBT",
"science fiction fantasy"
] |
[] |
Chapter 13
|
Harajan bordered an underground sea. Tactically, structurally, that seemed like a terrible idea, but it was another of the old holds built by the Talamynni, maintained by the Dhai, and inherited by the Saiduan. The Talamynni had an eye for making the illogical a reality. One level below the hold was a vast glass and iron ballroom jutting into the sea, twisted with still-living plant matter, suffused with some long-standing, and long-forgotten, parajista hex that kept the glass walls intact after these many thousands of years.
Instead of darkness, the view from the ballroom was luminous. Tens of thousands of bioluminescent creatures drifted lazily through the sea, casting an eerie light on those within. Maralah stood close to the glass. The smell of dust and damp was strong. No slave had been down here to polish it up for a party in at least ten years. Maralah remembered attending only one gala here, for Alaar's predecessor, Patron Osoraan. It was a riotous, drunken affair made even stranger with a variety of imported hallucinogens tucked away into select dishes. One man died, bashing his head repeatedly into the glass wall. Two women tore the skin from their own faces, and best Maralah could remember, there was a great deal of fucking – the mad kind, not the fun kind. If she inhaled deeply now, she could almost believe she smelled the incense that had suffused the space that night, watering her eyes, muddying her head.
Driaa was her only company now. She rocked back on her heels, sipping thoughtfully from a flask of aatai, her face lit garishly by the blue and white lights from the creatures in the sea beyond the glass. She passed the leather flask to Maralah.
Maralah drank, trying to keep the silence, but knew Driaa had not asked her down here for some sultry assignation. No, this was the type of place used by those who wanted to talk about dangerous politics.
"You've spent your whole life propping up weak men," Driaa said, finally. "How much longer are you going to wait to take the seat while Morsaar muddles about making cakes?"
The aatai burned Maralah's tongue. She coughed. Did Driaa brew it herself? It wouldn't surprise her. Food stores in Harajan were grim. The last dog sled caravan had been weeks ago, and half empty. Tai Mora scouting parties slaughtered six of the eight teams. "I will be the woman who destroyed us," she said. "No matter it was the decisions of others that brought us to this place. No matter that Alaar was the wrong man to lead a war. Our destruction will be heaped on my shoulders if I take the seat now. They won't see we lasted five years longer than we would have with Alaar's successor. We wouldn't be here if not for me. We'd be singing to Lord Sina. But history won't paint it that way."
"What do you care for the books?" Driaa said. She took back the flask, and gestured at the dancing sea creatures. "You think anyone remembers who built this? What's their name? It's more likely no one will remember you or me or anyone but Rajavaa anyway. They'll write the story the way they want to remember it. Nothing you do now changes the story. That's for them to decide. You're here to act."
"I wish I hadn't sent Kadaan on that fool's errand. I could use him now."
"Couldn't we all?"
"He loved that Dhai boy."
"Love is not a bad thing, especially now."
Maralah hesitated. Was this an assignation after all? "Soft words," she said. She almost growled it. She was not so far gone that she would fuck another sanisi to pass the time. Too many politics in that.
"I was a different ataisa in training, Maralah. I believed we must be hard, and ruthless. We must gut them before they gut us. Now I wonder if something was lost in all that gutting."
"Is that so?"
"When I was very young, still living in Tordin–"
"I hope you don't tell many people that story." No one liked foreigners and slaves becoming sanisi. They had that in common, she and Driaa – Maralah once enslaved by an indebted father, Driaa clearly of foreign parentage.
"My father claimed me, yes," Driaa said, "and brought me back to Saiduan with him. Got me the papers and everything, or I wouldn't be here, would I? There was… bad business in Tordin in those days. My mother was a bit of a rogue. Wild. Not very popular with Saradyn. She and her people were killed. My father took me away from that."
"Becoming a sanisi was easier than staying with your father?"
Driaa made a face. "My father wanted me to be many things I'm not. But I saw what Saradyn did to my mother's people, and when you're six years old… you can't fight. I wanted to fight because of what I saw Saradyn do to the people I loved. Isn't that why we fight? For those we love?"
"I fear I just don't know how to stop. If it wasn't the Tai Mora, who would we fight? Ourselves? The Dhai? The Dorinah? Always another face, always the same face."
"You have, perhaps, had too much to drink."
"Not nearly enough," Maralah said, but she did not reach for the bottle. She remembered fucking on this floor. How many people? A time best left forgotten, like her five years of servitude.
Driaa shrugged and took another drink. "I hold my liquor better."
"Is that an ataisa trait?"
"No more than your outpouring of nurturance is a female one," Driaa said.
Maralah snorted at that. She'd had a daughter once who'd said something similar, in precisely the same sarcastic tone. "Sometimes I wonder why we bother persevering at all."
"Well. It matters to me. It matters who I follow."
"That's a discussion for another time."
"If you don't take the seat, Maralah, someone else will. Others will be consolidating power."
"Have you been contacted by other parties?"
She shrugged. "I'm a sanisi. You know there are always warring factions."
"Who?"
"Just know this, Maralah. If you move, I am with you. If you do not… When Rajavaa dies, things may be very bad. No one dares now because of the loyalty of the army. But without Rajavaa–"
"I know," Maralah said.
Driaa tried to give her the flask again. Maralah shook her head.
"I best get back," Driaa said.
Maralah did not answer. Driaa shifted her weight, almost imperceptibly. "You should have the seat," she said, and then she was walking lightly away, back into the dim corridors.
Maralah lingered in the space, though she would have preferred to be first to leave. Instead, she found herself stuck with far too many thoughts and an unclear plan of action. As she watched the creatures beyond the glass, a hulking form moved through the darkness, glowing softly blue, brighter and brighter until she could see its vast head, as big as a doorway. It fixed her with one of its eight massive eyes, each the size and shape of her fist, as it swam lazily past the tank. It was free to swim on, unencumbered, but the only thing that made it possible to stand here was to create a prison for the observers. Of all the things the gifted could build with their brilliant powers, they chose this decadent room, spying into the sea. Perhaps, in some other age, it was an observatory, an enclave for research and advancement in the study of obscure fauna. Alaar would have used it for that purpose, certainly. But that peaceful, prosperous dream was over now.
She needed Rajavaa – the man of war – whole, no matter the cost. She needed him put back together before her people turned on her, and the false dream that she'd brought with her, only to discard as war devoured them.
As a child, she yearned for control over the petty wars and local government squabbles that rolled through her village. Now that she ostensibly controlled it all, she had never felt so out of control. Huge forces moved around her, threatening to swallow far more than just a village.
She tugged at the threads of the ward that bound Taigan to her, murmuring a litany, and activated the ward she'd seared into his flesh the day he betrayed Alaar. A simple ward, sent into fiery motion with the barest hint of Sina's breath, all she had now in its decline. No more waiting on messages, hoping for clear harbors. Driaa's message had been very blunt: Put this house in order, or someone else will.
She called Taigan home.
|
(Worldbreaker Saga 2) The Empire Ascendant
|
Kameron Hurley
|
[
"fantasy",
"LGBT",
"science fiction fantasy"
] |
[] |
Chapter 14
|
The Oras confronted Ahkio as he stepped back into the banquet hall from the gardens. He came up short. The air was heavy, like milk. He wore no weapon, and he was alone. He took a deep breath and looked into their faces. There were six of them, all his most trusted Oras – Shanigan the mathematics teacher, Elder Ora Masura of Tira's temple, his third cousins Naori and Jakobi, Ohanni the dancing teacher, and a young novice, newly raised, named Silafa Emiri Pana, who wasn't much older than he was.
The heavy air, and the look on their faces, gave him pause. "Go ahead then," Ahkio said. "I hope you're prepared for the consequences." He braced himself for a gifted assault.
Shanigan shook his balding head, looking confused. "We're here about Ora Almeysia," he said.
Ahkio let out a breath. "What about her?"
"We want to know what happened to her," Jakobi said. Her voice squeaked when she said it, and Naori gave her a look, as if her fear had endangered their cause.
"That's something you should ask Nasaka," Ahkio said.
"We have," Masura said. She had, of course, been drinking, but she was not as yet drunk, best Ahkio could tell.
"We found her body in the Fire River while you were in Kuallina," Jakobi blurted. "She was killed by the gifted arts. A murder after–"
"After all that death in Raona," little Ohanni said.
There was a long silence. All but Masura had fought beside him there.
"Come upstairs," Ahkio said. "We need privacy."
The seven of them met in the Assembly Chamber. Ahkio asked after Caisa, but no one could find her. He worried that she had run, but pursuing her now when he had this chance to rally these Oras would be foolish.
After ensuring the door was closed to the hall and his own chambers, Ahkio faced the six of them at the broad table and said, "I mean to exile Nasaka, but I need a solid reason. We all know she took Almeysia into her custody, and while we were in Raona she worked here against me. I can't tell you how I know that. I have no proof of it. But if we are going to root her out and any other against us here in the temple, I need your help."
"The emissary?" Ohanni asked. "If there's peace with the shadow people maybe this won't be necessary."
"They aren't offering peace," Ahkio said. "They're offering to accept our surrender. That isn't the same thing."
Masura stood. "I'm sorry, Kai, I can't be part of this meeting."
"Why?"
"I just cannot," she said, and stumbled from the room.
The others looked after her. "Are you all so fearful of Nasaka?" he asked.
Jakobi fidgeted. "She is a powerful Ora."
"We fought Tai Mora," Ahkio said. "She's no more terrifying."
"There's legal precedent," Shanigan said. "Etena, your aunt, was exiled."
"Can we prove Nasaka is mad?" Ohanni asked.
"I intend to find a way," Ahkio said. "I'll speak to Masura. But can I rely on all of your for this? We've united the country, but the Oras are still divided. As long as Nasaka is here there will be more bodies, more secrets."
A knock sounded on the door.
Caisa peeked her head in. "Apologies Kai, I thought–"
"No, let's speak," Ahkio said. "Excuse me," he told the room. "Caisa has some information for me about our visitors."
He met Caisa in the hall. She made to speak there, but he shook his head and brought her into one of the libraries.
"You didn't run," Ahkio said.
"Where would I go?" Caisa said.
Ahkio sat beside her on a hard yellow adenoak chair. The tables at the center of the room were piled with books and papers about governance. He moved toward the papers, wondering if Nasaka was ahead of him again. Was she going to figure out how to exile Ahkio now, after working so hard to get him in the seat? Her motives were inscrutable. She was always ten steps ahead. He rounded on Caisa.
"So how did you know Hofsha, when you lived among them?"
Caisa's face was wet. Her hands were clasped so tightly he wondered she didn't draw blood. "I served her. There were a lot of us. I wasn't even sure she'd know me."
"Are you hers?"
She raised her voice. "Did it look like it, Kai? Would I have killed those men, that man you couldn't kill in Raona, if I had chosen that side? I've been here four years, Kai. I don't know why I could suddenly come over. The wink stays open sometimes, after they leave. I snuck through. It was a long time ago. I've always been yours."
"I need information about them."
"I don't have much," Caisa said. "I wasn't anyone important. It's why they didn't miss me."
"Who leads them?"
"She isn't your real sister," Caisa said. "But she has your face, yes. You knew that though, didn't you?"
His gut roiled. He remembered his sister on her death bed, reaching for his. She had died so she could choose her heir, but by dying she made it possible for her shadow to come over, and her twin was no less than the empress of the Tai Mora. He was going to have to fight his own sister. Soon.
What are you willing to sacrifice…?
"Gaiso is one of her commanders," Caisa said. "She leads the parajistas. I've met Lohin, too. She doesn't like Lohin much."
"She never did," Ahkio said.
"She isn't your Kirana," Caisa said.
"What else?" He needed to forget about the betrayal and squeeze her for information. "How large is her army?"
Caisa looked into her lap again. "Her army is the whole world, Kai. They will come here. They won't stop. Their world… our world is dying."
"Liaro thought you might not be ours, did you know that?" he said. He was angry now, and letting it rule his speech. He tried to rein it in, but his fear of Nasaka and the emissary was getting the best of him.
"Oma," she pressed her hands to her face. "Liaro."
"You put us all in danger."
"I chose my side, Kai. I'm sorry I didn't do it the way you wanted, or do it bravely. Hofsha hates me. If I was some spy, you think I'd have run off?"
"I think it best you're reassigned to another temple," he said, even as his gut told him that was a terrible idea. He had six – no, five – Oras in the Assembly chamber he could maybe count on to subvert Nasaka. He needed Caisa.
"Kai–"
"Elder Ora Naldri will be happy to take you. You can continue your studies. We'll need good parajistas on the front lines at the harbor, when that time comes."
"Please don't do this. I'm yours. I promise–"
"That's all, Caisa." He pointed to the hall.
"Please, Kai… Ahkio, please–"
"I have too many knives in my back," he said. "I can't risk another."
"Are you going to tell Liaro?"
"Is there anything I don't tell Liaro?"
"Kai? Hofsha would have killed me."
"I know," Ahkio said. "That's what makes us different. That's why we'll win."
"The good people don't always win, Kai."
"I know," he said. He thought of Nasaka.
After dismissing his arguing coterie of Oras from the Assembly Chamber, no closer to a legal solution for his Nasaka problem, Ahkio found Liaro in the bathing room beneath the temple. Ahkio was still exhausted from his ordeal in the heart of the temple. He felt like an old man. The bathing room was relatively quiet. Two small novices shrieked and splashed at the other side of the broad room, but Liaro had a steaming little round pool all to himself. He read over the lip of the pool, some expensive book that Ahkio suspected would be difficult to replace if it fell into the water. That's the least of my problems, Ahkio thought dully. Steam made a misty blanket across the surface of the water. The whole room was dim, lit by bioluminescent plants and great semi-sentient water lily spiders that glowed blue every time they puffed out their forms in the depths of the pools, filtering the water with every breath.
"You look especially lovely," Liaro said, raising his head from the book.
Ahkio pulled off his clothes and sank into the water beside him. "And you're especially complimentary. I wonder what you've done lately to offend someone," he said. "You didn't tell me about Almeysia's body."
"Ah, that," Liaro said. He closed the book and pushed it far from the edge of the pool. Ahkio glanced at the title. It was a Dorinah romance. "It's in the notes I made while you were in Liona. I can put them on your desk, Kai, like a good little sparrow."
"I asked you to stay here because I trust you."
"And I'm glad you trust me, after I hauled you half-dead out of the bottom of the temple. You know how stupid that was?
"You've only told me twenty times."
"What did their emissary say?"
"War's coming if I answer too quickly," he said.
"Lovely. Lovely little time we're having here." Liaro rested his elbows on the stone rim of the pool behind him. He was thinner than he had been a month ago, his face haggard. Ahkio saw the scars on his torso from that day in Raona when he'd been wounded, tripping and falling on his own weapon. Ahkio might have poked fun at him about it, but he was tired. As tired as Liaro looked.
"Do you have any good news, then?" Ahkio asked.
"Well, everyone loves me," he said, "so it's been easy to ask around about vacant Ora positions being filled. With so many gone running around the clans playing at fighting with us, it's opened up a lot of seats."
"Nasaka's council?"
"Elder Ora Gaiso was replaced by a person named Soruza Morak Sorai. Have you heard of them?"
"Sorai," Ahkio muttered. Liaro was using the ungendered Dhai pronoun in reference to Soruza, which narrowed down the number of people it could be. Ahkio went through the list of Mohrai's kin in his head. Soruza, ungendered, an Ora – sibling to Mohrai's grandmother? "Jista from…?"
"Temple of Tira," Liaro said. "One of Elder Ora Masura's."
Ahkio rolled that over. Was Masura his or Nasaka's or just trying to stay uninvolved? He needed to find out, and soon.
"A good deal of your mother's former lovers seem to like you," Liaro said.
"I'd call it jealousy, but you know where you stand in my heart."
"The left ventricle?"
Ahkio made an expression that felt more like a grimace than a smile, and let the silence stretch. "I'm going to exile Nasaka. I've put things in motion."
"That's… bold. Have you spoken to her since you got back?"
"No, and I intend to avoid her awhile longer. Her star is descendent, Liaro. If I'm going to move, I must do it now, before this all goes to Sina's heart. When I reject that emissary's offer, we'll be going to war. I want to delay my final answer to her as long as possible. That gives us time to move against Nasaka, clean up any of her appointments, and get the temples in order so we're strong enough to face the Tai Mora. And I need to… visit the basements again."
"No," Liaro said. He tone was deadly serious.
"You don't have to come."
"Don't do that again. I won't go through that shit again," Liaro said. "You were dead, Ahkio. Barely breathing. A week you laid in a bed. I won't pull you out again. Whatever's down there is mad, and it probably killed your sister. What if putting herself against that thing is what killed her?"
"It wasn't."
"How do you know?"
"Is everything all right, Liaro?"
"It's funny, being cousin to the Kai, you know?" he said bitterly. "You're never sure if someone's affection is for you, or for the Kai. It's like you're the Kai-by-proxy. I'm the dog-faced Kai with the better sense of humor."
"Is that so horrible?"
Liaro flicked water at him. Ahkio forced something more like a smile this time. The novices on the other side of the room had fallen into a panting, giggling embrace. Ahkio couldn't help but watch them, and long for that kind of carefree afternoon.
"I can't lose you, Liaro."
Liaro shook his head. "You won't, I just… this is too big for me, all right? I'm not… some smart hero. I'm just a smart-talking day laborer. That's all. I wanted a bed full of friends and a drink in my hand. I don't want this."
"I don't either. But this is what we have."
The novices helped each other out of the pool and scurried off to the changing room. Two blue-lit lily spiders surfaced at the center of the pool, expelling their bladders of filtered water, and resubmerged.
Liaro raised himself out of the pool. He mussed Ahkio's hair and picked up the Dorinah romance. "I'll go look in on Soruza for you," he said, "and tell Caisa to set up a meeting with them tomorrow. As for this thing with Nasaka, and the basements… let's talk about it later, all right? Preferably with a drink and some bad poetry."
Ahkio almost told him, then stopped. Let Caisa tell him. She had at least a week before Ahkio finalized her transfer to Para's temple. "I'll be a few more minutes," Ahkio said.
Liaro nodded "You should have given them your clothes," he said. "They're going to get wet." He walked back to the changing rooms.
But Ahkio wasn't really listening. He was watching the water lily spiders puffing their way through the water, content in the near stillness of the bathing house. Ahkio lingered there for another half an hour or more, watching the plants surface and dive, surface and dive, over and over again, the program for their behavior written into them from the time they were little seedling embryos growing on their parent's back. They knew nothing else, no other way to conduct themselves. If Ahkio drained the water from the bathing house, they would flop around on the floor of it until all the water evaporated, and they would die. They could not rewrite what they were.
He wondered if the world was like that, and the satellites in the sky, running some cosmic program that they were all fated to play out from birth, something Oma infused them with. So the Dhai came around and around and around again, killing other people, killing themselves, a long, unending cycle of violence and renewal.
It wouldn't stop until someone drained the pool.
Who would move first, he wondered, him or Nasaka?
He knew whose hand would be deadlier.
|
(Worldbreaker Saga 2) The Empire Ascendant
|
Kameron Hurley
|
[
"fantasy",
"LGBT",
"science fiction fantasy"
] |
[] |
Chapter 15
|
Spring in the mountains, like something Zezili had read about as a child: the smell of tree lupines and honeysuckle, wafting on a wind that carried with it the stink of her little army. She got a warm week of that, and then they descended into the Tordinian lowlands on the other side of the pass, hurrying just ahead of a pack of strange animals Zezili had no name for.
The animals sprang on them their first night in the cold, foggy bottomlands, an attack so fast Zezili didn't have time to pull up her trousers from the pit she was pissing in. She ran into camp with sword in hand, naked ass bared to the cold air. She hacked and slashed. Her blade found purchase. Slid home into some scaly backside. A yelp. Howling.
Zezili pulled her blade from what looked to be a giant scorpion dog. She had no other name for it. She grimaced and wiped the violet blood on her boot, hoping it wasn't anything poisonous. Rhea's tears, how did anyone put up with living in such a vile place?
The dogs took two of her women, and badly mauled another, so savagely Zezili suspected she'd die of the wounds. But leaving her there would be bad for morale, and sending her back with a couple of others would mean losing three women instead of one. So they pushed on, carrying her at the back of the train on a muddy litter.
"We're leaving the lowlands," Jasoi said from her mount at Zezili's side.
Zezili glanced over at her. The fog was lifting. Jasoi's expression was, as ever, blasé. She was smeared in scorpion dog blood from head to foot. The first slash of open water they found, Zezili wanted a dunk, no matter how cold. Her skin itched.
"You all right with being in Tordin?" Zezili asked. She'd asked before they started, but suspected the answer she might give in Dorinah would be different than one back on the turf of the place she'd grown up.
"Saradyn burned down my mother's farm," Jasoi said. "I've got no quarrel with burning down a few of his."
"Going to be more than a few farms."
Jasoi spit. She was chewing on some bit of bonsa sap. "Better than gutting chattel."
"Yes, the dajians were a nasty business."
"You think she's going to kill the rest? Have someone else do it, now we're gone?"
"I don't know," Zezili said. "I'm not sure our… agreement with the Tai Mora is still on."
"You fuck that up?"
"As much as it could be fucked up, yeah."
"Tordin's different from every place else," Jasoi said, dismissing the other conversation as if she knew it to be as potentially fraught as Zezili did. Jasoi was a woman of simple pleasures, but she was not stupid. "Wild here, kind of like in Dhai. Lot of jungle, bands of thieves. They'll skin you as soon as look at you. Most are refugees from the fighting. Civil war, all the time."
"All the time?"
Jasoi shrugged. "Long as I can remember. The Empress's cousin, Penelodyn, ruled here for a while before the Thief Queen unseated her. And after that it all started falling to pieces. Saradyn's trying to bring everybody together again under a sword. Side with the guy with the biggest stick, you know?"
Zezili cleaned her weapon and sheathed it. She urged the bear forward and called up at Storm, "You going to put better scouts ahead? I don't want any more surprise dogs!"
Storm glanced back. "I thought you'd be pleased at the chance to show your skills."
"Fuck you, Storm."
"I sent a boy up."
"A boy? Is that a joke?"
"He's fast. Good eyes."
"That's soft, Storm."
"Just practical. The clearing's ahead, another mile."
Zezili slapped her bear, and the animal trundled on ahead of Jasoi and the half dozen legionnaires between her and Storm.
Storm rode at the head of the group, something Zezili would not have done herself. Any kid with a bow could loose a bolt in her throat. But Storm swayed on ahead with apparent ease. He had even loosened his collar and taken off his greaves.
"Think they'll take us both out together?" Zezili said as she came up beside him.
"Who, bandits? Saradyn's men? No, not a group this size."
"I've learned caution."
"I can see that in your face." There was no sarcasm in his voice, but Zezili flinched.
"We should have a clear view of the crater from this clearing," he said. "Should be an old temple to Rhea here, the Empress says. Our first landmark on the map. If this is it, we're only a week or so away from the site she's sending us to."
As the trees thinned, Zezili saw a massive mound jutting out of the clearing ahead. She was a little surprised they hadn't seen it before now, but the tree cover was thick. If the trees were two hundred feet tall, the mound was easily three hundred, a conical tower of soil covered in thorny vines and twisted saplings with yellowing leaves. When they broke into the clearing Zezili saw heaps of bones peeking up from the crawling vines. She stopped her bear at the edge of the clearing, and held up a hand for Storm to stop.
"You think there's some beast out here?" Storm said.
"We'd have drawn its attention before now," Zezili said, "unless that boy runner of yours was already eaten. You think he went up that?"
"Around, maybe," Storm said. "He's to scout, not explore."
Storm put his fingers to his lips and whistled for the runner. Zezili waited with him while the bears and bodies behind her snuffled and shifted. Zezili was glad most of them couldn't see the bones.
Storm whistled again. Zezili saw movement ahead of her, to her left, and gripped the hilt of her sword. Another flash of movement, then a bob of dark hair. Not some creature, but a boy with his hair shorn monstrously short. He wore dark colors, and was wiry as a bonsa sapling. She saw a bit of hard strength in his face that she didn't like. He had the audacity to meet her gaze for a short moment before looking quickly away.
"Any monster out there?" Storm said. "Or worse? Another woman like Syre Zezili, perhaps?"
The boy shook his head. Young man, really. Twenty or so, if Zezili guessed right. "No sign of people ahead, for at least the next half mile. Biggest wildlife is a couple hundred pounds, some boar, long-necked herbivores–"
"Long-necked what?" Zezili said.
"Animals," he said, "that eat grass."
"Like range deer?"
"Bigger, and striped, not spotted. Sorry, I don't know the name."
Zezili pointed to the mound. "Scout up that next," she said. "Should be our landmark."
Storm frowned, scrunching up his scraggly beard. He had the decency to continue having his mane of hair done each morning while on the march, at least. "I can confirm it's the same as what's on the map," Storm said.
"He'll have a better view of what's ahead," Zezili said. "No more surprises."
The young man's throat bobbed. He glanced at Storm.
"Don't look at him," Zezili said. "We're both leading this charge. Get your skinny ass up the mount."
"Go on, child," Storm said.
The young man crept to the edge of the clearing and tread slowly across the tangles of yellowed bones.
Zezili leaned forward. She realized she wanted to tear the tunic from him, and watch him navigate the gauntlet naked. A perverse pleasure, she knew. But her pleasures were fewer and fewer these days. What she could not control, she wanted to punish. It was an instinct that served her well in Dorinah. Outside of it, she realized, it meant punishing everything, everyone: the world; the sky.
Zezili admitted she was surprised when he got to the base of the mound unscathed. He kicked at the loose soil and began to pull himself up, gripping vines and dying saplings for leverage. After a few feet, one of the saplings he grabbed tore away. He yanked it from the soil, and as it tumbled free Zezili saw the roots of the sapling were tangled around something that looked distinctly like a hunk of flesh of some kind. Animal or human, she didn't know. She rubbed her eyes. It had been a long ride.
The boy climbed higher. Below him, the sapling and whatever it had rooted itself to tumbled into the wash of bones and vegetation below. Zezili saw the detritus tremble. She squinted. It continued to waver; a sea of bone. She saw ripples move out across the pile.
"Storm…" she said, pointing.
"I see it," Storm said. "Come down, boy!"
"Don't!" Zezili said. "He's making progress."
Storm slid off his bear with a grunt. He strode to the edge of the bone sea. "Come back!" he yelled. "Don't go further!"
"There are stairs further up!" the young man called. "I can see steps built into the tower here."
"Come down!"
The young man swung further up the mound. Gripped what Zezili supposed he meant by "steps." From this distance, there was indeed some kind of patterned protrusions on the outside of the mound, but to Zezili they looked like teeth.
Zezili didn't get off her bear, but she edged it forward to get a better look. The boy was at least thirty feet up, climbing with some regularity. Zezili saw bits of stone and loose soil tumble down the edge of the mound as he ascended. His fingers dug into the irregular grooves.
Then the soil began to fall faster, and the falling stones grew larger. Zezili recoiled. The entire mound trembled.
"Get off there!" Storm yelled.
Zezili drew her bear back.
A massive moaning broke across the clearing, as if the world had cracked open.
The young man yelled, and held on. Great, fleshy tendrils erupted from the mound, a thousand snaking arms of tuberous tentacles. The boy screamed and let go. He slid four feet toward the bone yard before the tentacles caught him.
The fleshy tentacle shook him like a doll, so violently Zezili thought he would come apart. Zezili heard the cracking of his spine.
"Retreat!" Storm yelled at the women behind them. "About face and forward!"
They were all too eager to obey. Zezili heard the jingle of tack, the babble of muttered prayers.
Storm lunged back onto his bear, sliding his substantial girth into the saddle. He brought his mount around. He galloped ahead to catch up with the tail end of their force.
Zezili gazed back a moment longer at the seething mound. The tentacles began to retract back into the soil. They took the boy's broken body with them. Zezili watched as the tentacled thing folded it into the maw of the giant semi-sentient flesh-eating plant. The horror gripped her then. She gagged. Yelled at her bear.
She followed the retreating tail of their force. Storm forged on ahead to take the lead, but Zezili remained at the rear, looking constantly over her shoulder for some massive tentacle to come curling up from the undergrowth.
They had no tracker for the Tordin woodland. Jasoi had left the place as a girl. What did she know? Foolish, to bring women to a place as wild and contaminated as Dhai. No infrastructure. No order. No law.
An hour before dusk, Storm had them burn out a clearing and pitch camp. The Empress's Seekers were well gone, run out or destroyed by the Empress herself, so they worked with foreign tirajistas and parajistas from the island country of Sebastyn, a rocky shore much fought over by Dorinah and Saiduan. They enjoyed a negotiated peace now, one that had the Sebastyn collective agree to hand over a dozen jistas as a sign of good will and friendship.
The Sebastyns were mostly short and dark, with a couple exceptions. Zezili had yet to learn their names. It felt like an inordinate amount of work. She had spent much of her time drinking and sleeping. It worried her that the Empress had placed her trust in whatever needed to happen to wake her sleeping weapon into the hands of these foreigners.
Storm's pages put together Storm and Zezili's tents. Zezili yelled at one of the jistas to come over and burn out a tendril that looked like it was moving again, then sat down and started untangling her armor. After the tents were up and darkness descended, Storm invited Zezili over to his fire. Zezili saw Storm's second there, and Jasoi, and even the youngest page, a girl Zezili had taken to calling "runt" because she had some kind of mangled walk.
Zezili was already a little drunk, but she shuffled over. Drinking alone got old, and in the right light, Storm's second looked a little boyish.
"What did you think of that… thing today?" Jasoi asked. Her eyes were bright, and her cup was nearly empty.
"I think we need some help," Zezili said, "or we're all going to get eaten out here."
"It tells us we're on the right track," Storm said, "and we have the jistas."
"Jistas traveling at the center of the group," Zezili said. "They aren't going to be much help if something surprises us again."
Storm grunted. "That surprise could have been avoided."
"That so?" Zezili said. "You'd rather I took you and Jasoi up there, so it was our bodies getting eaten by worms?"
"Just a waste, is all," Storm said. "We didn't need to scout that view."
Zezili leaned forward. "Every one of us is here to be ground to death for one purpose. To wake up whatever the Empress has huddled up here. That's it. And we'll fall for it, every one of us. There's no waste in that. That's precisely why we're here. If we took a load of apples with us, and ate them, would you say they were a waste for being eaten? No. That's their purpose. There's no waste. Same with you or me."
"You always were a cold bird, Zezili," Storm said.
"You should have romanced proper," Jasoi said. "A nice warm woman."
Zezili glared at her. Jasoi hiccupped, and covered her mouth.
"I have a husband," Zezili said.
"Husbands are sufficient for children," Storm's second, a lean woman named Haloria, said warmly; a little smugly, "but love is only for equals. Love is something only a woman can bring you." She said it like she was reciting from The Book of Rhea.
"You making me an offer?"
Haloria guffawed. "I know some good girls who could warm that soul."
"It's not my soul needs warming," Zezili said. "It's up to the task." She didn't like the way the conversation was going. She stood. "Long day tomorrow."
"Yes, Syre," Storm said.
Zezili narrowed her eyes. Was the mocking worth a scene? She wasn't certain. She was tired. She stepped to her tent and kicked out her fire. Inside, she pulled on a heavier coat and kicked into her bedroll. For a time, she sat awake listening to the noise of the camp; laughter and murmured prayers, the singsong voices of recited stories, the dark whispers of the day's fears. The Empress had put her in charge of all of it, all of these lives, again, though she had watched half her women burned to death by some mad omajista, and declared her own life forfeit. The Empress liked to move them all around, just to see how far she could push them.
And she can push me far, Zezili thought, all the way to Tordin. She closed her eyes and saw, again, the runner's body broken, his meaty suit of humanity yanked into the boiling mound. She imagined the Empress was that alien, unknowable thing, devouring all she touched, scattering bones at her feet.
We are not wasted, she had told Storm, and that was true, perhaps. They were no more wasted than those bones. It was their fate, to become bones fed to the ravenous beast that was their Empress.
Or to feed the Empress her own bones, in the end.
Whatever way it went, Zezili didn't much like it.
|
(Worldbreaker Saga 2) The Empire Ascendant
|
Kameron Hurley
|
[
"fantasy",
"LGBT",
"science fiction fantasy"
] |
[] |
Chapter 16
|
Saradyn of Lind, King of Tordin, woke from a dream of ghosts. The ghosts had trailed after him from his dreams and stood over him, pale in the way of Dorinahs, bloodless – all ghosts looked like Dorinahs, in the dark. He gazed through their misty forms to the dogs lying deep in their slumber at the mouth of his tent.
"Saradyn," the ghosts murmured.
Saradyn turned his back to the ghosts, and slept.
He woke at dawn and pulled on his boots and coat, scratched at his bearded face, and rinsed his mouth. The ghosts were gone.
The dogs rose with him, two perpetually adolescent runts he called Dayns and Sloe. Their heads just reached his shoulder. He had tended their birth himself, and raised them from pups when their mother saw better fit to eat them. They were a useful size – large enough to be intimidating, but small enough to sleep inside his tent.
He stepped outside onto frozen ground. The air was chill. The dogs followed. His men emerged bleary-eyed from the thin folds of their own tents, and huddled around cook fires. These men had been with him from the beginning, and later, brought their sons into his service. They camped now at the base of the Tongue Mountains, toothy protrusions raking the sky along Saradyn's peripheral vision. Dawn tore the sky like the remnants of a red dress. The woods of old pine were rimmed in frost, but the day promised to warm as the suns rose. Para's milky blue light already touched the treetops. Laine's sons had not blessed him with the magic to control the wind, raise the dead, or bend living things to his will. What the satellites bestowed on him was darker, a curse more than gift – from Laine himself to remind him of his sins – and the sins of others. He could see ghosts.
As the dogs took in the measure of the camp, Saradyn took in the day's news and gossip. There was talk among his runners that Natanial Thorne had crossed back over the Mundin Mountains and into northern Tordin the day before. What he had been doing in Aaldia, Saradyn could only guess. Saradyn had sent a runner up that way to confirm. Rumors were already coming out of Dorinah about cats and assassins and the rising of Laine's Eye, but Saradyn had no time for rumor until Natanial confirmed it. There were troublemakers in Saradyn's own tenuous kingdom in the one Tordinian province that had sided with his enemy in the old days. Fools, all. Educated by witches and girls.
Tanays, Saradyn's second, gestured to him from a nearby fire. He and his ghost. The ghost was always at Tanays' shoulder; a small, hunched figure with big, dark eyes. She did not speak. Only watched. It was a fitting place for her to end her days. Saradyn had known that ghost in life. Tanays' daughter.
Saradyn squatted next to Tanays. He shifted purposefully into the ghost, so their images merged. Her form flickered, faded, and reappeared at Tanays' opposite elbow. Saradyn had learned long ago he could not banish the ghosts Laine forced him to see, only antagonize them. Best they had ghosts, though. The ones who did not… they were the truly dangerous ones.
"We received more information last night," Tanays said. "The rabble out of Old Galind is a group of the Thief Queen's lot."
"Thought I'd killed them all," Saradyn said. His circle was one of the last to hold to the Thief Queen's old moniker: Quilliam of the Mountain Fortress; Quill of Galind; Quill the Thief Queen. He supposed he was one of the few old enough to remember she had a real name once before she tried to take his power and he killed her for it.
Tanays leaned over the fire pan and pushed a sizzling slab of boar bacon with a charred stick. Above his peppered-gray beard, lines etched the corners of his eyes. He kept his brow perpetually furrowed. He was always squinting.
"I'm assuming this group of rebels wants autonomy," Saradyn said.
"They want to call themselves Rohandar," Tanays said, "after some dead city."
"Just what Tordin needs," Saradyn said. "Another country."
"That's their thought."
"Let's sweep the village of dissidents, then," Saradyn said.
"I haven't told you everything," Tanays said.
"Sweep it clean. I don't want it butchered completely." He liked Tanays, but Tanays had always been too hesitant, too willing to sit on his heels and let events run their course. Saradyn had not gotten this far by sitting back from the fray. Tordin had been in disarray since the murder of the Empress of Dorinah's sister, Penelodyn, twenty years before when she was burned out by the Thief Queen. Saradyn had taken full advantage of the chaos. Now the whole region was nearly his, from the northern mountains to the southern sea. Nearly.
Saradyn gazed out at the camp and saw a cluster of figures at the edge of the trees, insubstantial, like fog. He whistled to Dayns and Sloe. The dogs loped toward him.
"See," he said, and pointed to the tree line. The dogs galloped through the camp. They smashed through the line of hazy figures. The dogs did not howl, and did not bark.
So the figures were just ghosts. The older he became, the wider his influence, the more invaluable the dogs. They had saved his life more times than his own men. They had often saved him from his own men. The dogs always knew who to fear, and who was just some wandering specter broken loose from Laine's sons in the sky.
Saradyn whistled the dogs back. He looked down at Tanays.
"We run a sweep," Saradyn said. "Tordin has just one ruler."
They went house to house. They dragged men from their beds, from closets, from lofts, from stone cellars. They gathered the men in the big wooden church at the center of town. Saradyn wanted every drop of blood dedicated to Laine.
"Keep your heads high," he told his men before they swept the town for insurgents. And they did. They left the women – crying or defiant or fighting – untouched in their homes, left the children screaming, but took every boy over ten. They interrogated them, one by one. They took them into church boxes, alcoves. They left the priest unscathed, and did not even touch his fingers. Saradyn knelt before the old man and asked for absolution from Laine, and the priest gave it, though his voice trembled and his hands shook.
Saradyn had not underestimated the women of northern Tordin, though by asking that they remain untouched, he was not surprised when they marched out of their houses and tried to storm the church.
Saradyn had his men open the big doors. They cleared the stairs with a smattering of arrows. He grabbed up the village headwoman's eldest son and dragged him onto the stair. Tanays was just behind them, and a half-dozen of his best fighters. Dayns and Sloe paced the lip of the lower stairs, hackles raised, growling at the mob of women.
"We come to do no violence," Saradyn told them. "Any violence done will be in response to your actions. Go back to your houses, or you'll see death on these steps."
The women screamed at him. Surged forward. Saradyn cut the boy's throat. He pushed the gurgling body down the steps, and called behind him, without taking his eyes from the women: "Give me someone they care about!"
He saw a hundred screaming ghosts at the women's shoulders: dead children, bloody babies with dark lips, and the ghosts of their own pasts; old women and matrons in their youth, all paths open to them, before their roads grew shorter, before pregnancies and abortions, nursing, husbands, obligation, sacrifice; before binding their blood to another and giving over their passions for it.
Saradyn stared out at their ghosts and said, "Go back to your houses. I don't want to threaten your children, but your children have threatened my rule. You are good women. Good mothers. It's your hand that keeps me here or keeps me away. Don't teach your boys defiance. Don't teach your girls swordplay. That only brings more violence here."
The ghosts stirred.
"You're a fool!" one of the women cried.
"Maybe so," Saradyn said, "but it's not my children bleeding on these steps."
The surge of women heaved a collected breath. Saradyn watched the ghosts. The ghosts wailed and thrashed. Flickered. Two women near the back of the mob turned away.
"This is your power," Saradyn said. "Stay here, and you condemn me and my men to stay with you. Go home, and we finish and go our way. Keep weapons out of your children's hands, and you need not see my face again. I'm here to unite this country, not destroy it."
A few more women broke away. Then others. Slowly, in small groups. They dropped their stones, smoothed at their hair. Their children clung to their apron strings.
Saradyn did not turn his back until the ghosts of those left had ceased to scream, and whispered to themselves instead. When he turned, Tanays was watching him.
"I never peg you as a man who knows how to talk to women."
"I talk to them like men," Saradyn said, "men who are bound to their bodies. But I know where women belong in my country, and it's not in public spaces. They know it, too. It's why they listen to me."
"Now?"
"Now I find my troublemakers, and show them Laine's mercy."
Saradyn sat in on a half dozen interrogations. He took the fingers off a boy of twelve whose father would not speak.
The old man burst into tears. He clutched at his screaming boy. The two had a stir of ghosts around them, misty figures: sobbing torsos, women with streaming hair.
Saradyn did not look at either of them, but at the lonely fingers lying on Laine's altar. His ax had made a deep groove in the silver-painted wood.
Tanays sat on the steps just below Saradyn, speaking with a hysterical young boy who was spilling names and wild stories.
Saradyn set his ax on the altar and pulled the old man away from his son. "Tell me where the troublemakers are," Saradyn said. "End this."
The man collapsed in front of Saradyn. His hair was a white tangle. Red dust filled the seams of his face. "Liege, they don't mean harm. Not one of them. They're just girls. Young. They don't know better." His big hands clung to Saradyn's trousers.
Tanays pulled a pipe out of his long coat, lit it with a scorch pod. The pod was one of the few precious Dhai resources that made it through the blockade of Dhai's harbor. "Down here, Saradyn," Tanays said.
Saradyn shook the old man off. He stepped around the bloody pool growing around the boy's fingerless hand. The boy lay slumped against the altar. Saradyn's surgeon attended him.
"Who?" Saradyn asked, crouching next to Tanays and the boy.
"Rosh started it," the boy bawled. He was very young, younger than ten. He'd likely lied about his age when they swept the houses.
"Where can I find Rosh?"
The boy pointed with his good hand. A misty halo rode his right shoulder, the beginnings of a face.
Saradyn looked over at the pews where a group of boys huddled.
"Which one, boy?" Tanays said.
The boy wiped his face with his grubby remaining hand. He scrambled to his feet and turned on the other boys waiting in the pews. They stared at him. A stir of jeers started.
Pol pointed to a skinny youth at the center of the bunch. Saradyn took the youth for a boy, at first – narrow and smooth cheeked, with big, dark eyes and cropped dark hair the color of old blood.
Saradyn told the youth to stand up. "You're being accused," Saradyn said.
The youth glared at him. He expected more fear. But then he saw the ghosts, and decided she was female. The ghosts were as defiant as she: two boyish figures and the torso of a deathly pale woman with a halo of black hair. They were mute ghosts, and static.
"He's a stupid boy," she said. "You listen to fool boys?"
"Stand up, Rosh," Saradyn said.
The girl stood, though he couldn't mark her as a girl, even knowing it, looking for it because of her ghosts. She was the sort of androgyny who had passed through his army in the old days. These days, he tried to pick them out and send them home. He couldn't grow a country with half its women fucking about in the army instead of having babies at home.
"There are worse things we can do, to a girl," Saradyn said.
She spit at him. "It's no different, no matter who you do it to."
Saradyn hauled her out by the collar. She struck at him. He twisted her arm behind her and pushed her against the altar. "We need to know the rest of your little band of dissidents," Saradyn said. "You ran with the Thief Queen? You don't look old enough."
"My mother did."
"And where's she?"
"Dead, fuck you," the girl said.
Saradyn gripped her cropped hair, and smashed her head on the altar. "Again?"
"Dead," she gasped. Blood dripped from her mouth.
The old man was gripping his son's arm at the behest of the surgeon.
"You brought all this on us!" the old man cried at the girl. The misty faces around him contorted. "You brought the hound up from the south, you fool!"
"Who else?" Saradyn leaned into the girl and murmured in her ear. She kicked back at him, and nearly caught him in the groin. One of his men stepped in and helped keep her still.
"You can't scare me," she said. Her ghosts hovered around the altar. They stared stoically back at Saradyn.
"You'd prefer I give you over to my men?" Saradyn said.
"What? Fucking me? Fucking doesn't scare me, you old fool. I'll still be here. I'll just be more pissed off."
The ghost with the black hair moved. She hissed. Perhaps that was her mother's ghost.
"How many parts need to be here," Saradyn said, "and still keep you speaking? Not many." Saradyn released her into the hold of the other men at the altar. "Bind her and take her with us."
They took a handful of the village boys as well, the midwife's son, the headwoman's youngest, and an assortment of her cousins. The boys were sworn to Saradyn and to Laine. Saradyn left two dozen of his fighters in residence to root out the rest of Rosh's rebels.
The remaining men trudged back south with Saradyn. They camped that night with a double guard. Errant villagers had been known to come after their kin.
Saradyn sat in his tent with the dogs and broke open his old copy of Penelodyn's On Governance. He'd had all of her work translated from the original Dorinah. His copy was dog-eared, the spine broken twice. He followed the writing with his finger, mouthing the words.
Tanays voice came from without. "Permission to enter?"
"Enter," Saradyn said.
Tanays ducked in. He knelt back on his heels across from Saradyn. His ghost tailed him, a pace behind. She was clasping and unclasping her hands. A new affectation. Saradyn did not often see her move. She was usually a static ghost.
Sloe nudged his big nose toward Tanays. Tanays scratched the dog's ears.
"Any trouble?" Saradyn asked.
"That girl isn't easy dealing."
"The men will soften her up."
"Not really."
"Nothing worse than a talkative woman," Saradyn said.
"No man would believe you married," Tanays said.
"But they might believe she's dead."
Tanays did not look at him. He kept scratching behind Sloe's ears. The dog wagged his enormous tail, nearly tumbling over the lantern. Saradyn pulled the lantern out of the way.
"You're too hard on that girl, I think," Tanays said. "She might be more useful if you turned her. Try kindness. Convince her of your vision as you convinced us. Any girl who leads a rebellion is–"
"Too much like the Thief Queen," Saradyn said. "I knew Quill before she was Queen. And she was just like that girl. Dirty, foul-mouthed, promiscuous, following no god but her own black conscience."
"She's dangerous because there's no place for her," Tanays said.
Saradyn closed his book. He felt a stirring of anger, a tightening in his chest. He had run with Tanays for over twenty years, and the man had only gotten softer with age. Since Tanays' daughter's death, he'd seen her in every ragged girl they tracked down, every girlish boy who'd tried to join their ranks because of some foolish peasant story about the Thief Queen.
The ghost at Tanays' elbow stared forlornly at Saradyn.
"There's no place for women here," Saradyn said. "She'll bleed and get pregnant, and then we'll have squalling pups to deal out. She'll make jealousy in–"
"You know as well as I about jealousy in the ranks. That Morran boy–"
"Is too pretty for his own good," Saradyn said. "I have him set for the next scout. I'd toss him out altogether if he wasn't our best archer."
"My point–"
Saradyn eyed him sharply. "Have you forgotten what I've done for this title? This vision? A united Tordin. No one comes in the way of it. Not women. Not my own wife. Not my own children."
"Must they all pay for your mistakes?"
"Get out," Saradyn said.
Tanays bowed and left him.
Saradyn glared at Sloe, who looked mournfully after Tanays and his big-eyed ghost. Sloe's tail thumped.
"Be still," Saradyn said.
The dog whined.
Saradyn and his company arrived at his seat in Gasira eight days later. Itague, his steward at the Gasiran hold, met him just inside the gate. Itague was a big man, heavily bearded. He took Saradyn into a meaty embrace and kissed the backs of his hands.
"You brought those dissidents to heel?" Itague asked. A twisting morass of ghostly figures contorted just behind him: a woman screaming, a blind old man with hands like claws, three boys with bloody faces.
"That's yet to see," Saradyn said. "Has Thorne arrived? I heard word of him in the north."
They started together up the curve of the outer stair and into the hold. Inside was little warmer than without. Saradyn's dogs tread behind him. Their nails clicked on the stone.
"Natanial Thorne came in just this morning from Aaldia," Itague said, "carrying a motley bunch with him. Don't know where he picks them."
"Hostages?"
"I assumed."
"Tell him I want him in my quarters."
Saradyn went up to his quarters and unbolted the big iron banded door. He sent the dogs in. Some drudge had lit the hearth and lantern above the bed. Saradyn saw furtive shapes near the slit window, and another in the chair amid a stir of shadows.
Dayns and Sloe paced the room. Sloe snuffled under the bed, and nosed open the wardrobe. Dayns went straight to the figures at the fire. He paused at the far chair. His hackles rose. A low growl came from deep in his throat. Sloe bounded over and paced in a wide circle around the chair, whining.
Saradyn shut the door and whistled the dogs away. Dayns shook off his stance and settled in front of the fire. Sloe lolled beside him. The big dogs took up all the space in front of the hearth, blocking the heat.
Saradyn yanked a knife from his hip and threw it at the chair. The knife buried itself in the leather arm of the seat. The figure sitting there didn't flinch. Saradyn grunted and began unbuckling his leather armor.
"You're tardy," Saradyn said, "by a large margin. I should murder you for it."
"Don't you have a boy to help you with all that dressing and undressing?" Natanial asked. His voice was a quiet rumble. He pulled the dagger from the arm of the chair and regarded it. "You keep your blade far too dull," he said. "Blunt instrument." He sat with one leg hooked over the other. He rolled a lump of sen between thumb and forefinger, staining his hands crimson. The hands had been the first thing Saradyn noticed about Natanial, after his lack of substantial ghosts. The shadows that rode Natanial's shoulders were just that – voiceless patches of darkness without solid form. They carried no names, no faces, no past. Natanial was the only man he'd met whose ghosts had no faces, as if Natanial had never marked them in life. He wasn't a man to hang onto his regrets. Saradyn appreciated that.
"A blunt knife to the eye is as effective," Saradyn said, "if thrown with enough force."
Natanial shrugged. "Surely you have more experience with such things than I."
Foul-mouthed little sarcastic shit, that one. Saradyn pulled off his stiff, dirty tunic and tossed it next to his bed. He washed himself with cloth and water from the basin near the wardrobe. He watched Natanial's figure in the polished bronze above the basin.
Natanial was long and lean, his face the rugged, angular cast of some handsome house. Natanial's face and form were nearly as valuable as his wit. Nearly. Saradyn would have dismissed the man for looks alone if not for his shadows. Saradyn didn't trust beauty, but it roused him. Natanial's mix of beauty and arrogance never failed to stir him.
"Tell me of Dorinah," Saradyn said. He pulled a clean black tunic from his wardrobe, "and this dalliance in Aaldia."
"You look as if you need help," Natanial said.
Saradyn recognized the invitation. He tugged open his trousers and let his cock free. He sat on the chair opposite Natanial, spread his legs, and met Natanial's look, daring him to act.
"The sinajista you wanted me to kill is dead," Natanial said. His gaze moved lazily to Saradyn's groin. "But one of their effeminates stumbled in just after I finished the sinajista. He's the husband of Captain General Zezili Hasaria." Natanial rose from his seat.
Saradyn leaned back in his chair. Natanial sat on the edge and took Saradyn's cock in his hand. He gently pulled his foreskin back and circled the tip with his thumb.
Saradyn grunted.
"He can open doors," Natanial said. His fingers tightened around Saradyn's cock and began to work, quickly and nimbly.
Saradyn imagined taking every woman in that little festering village, imagined their faces rapt with desire. He grunted again. Dayns barked, but he was too far gone now to care for them. He wanted to fuck everyone who opposed him, and have them thank him for it.
"He tore open a door in front of us," Natanial said. His voice sounded very distant. Saradyn's mind was filled with Rosh, and the Thief Queen before her. Laine's ass, why had he not murdered them both sooner? "We fell into it," Natanial said. "That's what took so long. He transported us to Aaldia."
Saradyn leaned forward. His hands tightened on the chair. The Thief Queen with her thick legs and sharpened teeth, the hands that found his throat, and when she bit that hunk from his leg when he first caught her—
Saradyn came. He expelled a long breath and shook himself back into the room, as if awaking from a dream. His body trembled as he stuffed himself back into his trousers, trying to catch at the end of Natanial's last words. "Our Aaldia?"
The dogs whined came over to lick up the mess on the floor.
Natanial got up and fell back into his seat opposite. He shrugged. "I knew you'd be able to tell if we weren't in the right world," Natanial said. "And you've said nothing, so I assume I'm still here."
Saradyn's gaze moved, unconsciously, to the faceless ghosts that followed Natanial. Yes, he was real. All of those with ghosts were of this world, his world, stringing their pasts along behind them. Those without ghosts, without a past… those were the ones he killed on sight. Those were the travelers. The interlopers.
Sloe finished licking the floor and rested his head on Saradyn's armrest. Saradyn scratched Sloe's ears. "Interesting." He patted Sloe's rump. The dog raised his head. "Find dinner," he said.
Sloe rose and padded to the door. He grabbed the rope affixed to the handle and pulled the door open. He went into the hall.
"The sinajista you had me kill talked," Natanial said. "The Empress has killed off her dajians at the behest of the Tai Mora and sent troops to Tordin."
"To what purpose? There's no gain for her."
"Knowing the mind of a monarch is your specialty. I just kill them."
"And fuck them," Saradyn said.
Natanial shrugged. "I enjoy my work." He held up his hands and began counting off with his long fingers. "No dajians. Fewer legionnaires. And she has just increased her people's child tax, so they must have five children instead of four to avoid it. I think the Empress has some bloody plan in the works."
The door opened. Sloe padded in ahead of a little drudge who trailed wispy blue-clad figures with static faces.
"Thorne, join me for dinner?"
Natanial stood. "Alas, no. I have an appointment."
Saradyn felt a jolt of disappointment, and perhaps jealousy. Natanial provided many useful distractions.
The drudge set the tray on the table between them. A decanter of dark wine, a half loaf of rye bread, red meat in a heavy sauce, and salted hasaen tubers. She bowed her head and retreated.
"Collect your due with Itague," Saradyn said. He went to his desk and wrote out a receipt, stamped it, and handed it over to Natanial. He waved him away.
"This includes–" Natanial began.
Saradyn grimaced. "You're little better than a whore."
"I'm a preferred whore," Natanial said.
Saradyn wrote out another receipt.
Natanial bowed.
Saradyn sat and ate in silence. After, he went and met with Itague and Tanays, and discussed matters of the hold. He approved the appointment of a new tax minister to the province of Concordyns to replace the one dipping too deeply into its tax coffers. Itague reminded him of an inspection appointment of the garrison. They had taken on another dozen boys in his absence. Saradyn told him to enlist the boys he'd brought back from the village.
"What about the girl?" Itague said.
"Rosh," Tanays said.
"Hang her in the square," Saradyn said.
Saradyn parted company with Itague sometime after midnight, after a briefing about happenings in the hold. His dogs followed after him and paced at the end of the bed before lying at the foot of it. Saradyn sat awake reading for a time until the clotted shadows in the corners of the room began to converge.
Murmuring figures drew away from the curtains and slid along the floor. Saradyn read aloud, to drown out the whispering voices. As night deepened, the shadows began to solidify. He had picked the room for its ghosts. They were few and reasonably static. A wispy crying girl in the corner by the door, and a dead woman beneath the window who was never more than an outline. But as he grew more tired, his own ghosts began to leak into the room, and then he had to shut the book and kick off his boots.
He slid into bed and reached for the light. It was the worst time of the night, that moment just before he put out his light. Just before darkness took away most of the ghosts' features, and drown them in blackness. Some nights he fell to bed before the shadows came, before the ghosts leaked out. Some nights, he slept in silence. He had sacrificed many to unite his country. They would not let him forget.
His candle snuffer came down. He heard children playing on the other side of his bed. Familiar voices.
The light went out.
He pulled the comforter over his head, to drown out the noise of his children.
|
(Worldbreaker Saga 2) The Empire Ascendant
|
Kameron Hurley
|
[
"fantasy",
"LGBT",
"science fiction fantasy"
] |
[] |
Chapter 17
|
Lilia stepped into the meeting room atop the harbor gate's eastern tower as if stepping into a battle. Plump, curly haired Mohrai was there with another young woman, and two older people Lilia did not recognize.
Taigan came in beside Lilia, but she had left Gian in the opposite tower where Mohrai's family had given them rooms.
"I'm Lilia Sona," Lilia said. "The Kai has sent me to help oversee the conflict here."
Mohrai and the older woman exchanged a look.
The younger woman stepped forward. She was slender, all arms and legs. She looked like a heron. "I'm Ora Harina. Ora Nasaka of Oma's Temple sent me to oversee this venture."
"Parajista?" Taigan asked.
"Sinajista," Harina said.
Taigan grimaced. "Your Ora was sure to send someone expendable. That's lovely."
"Let's be civil, Taigan," Lilia said. She wished she spoke Saiduan, then, so she could be clearer without being even more rude in front of these people. If the harbor was about pieces on the board, so was this room. All of these people wanted something beyond just surviving this siege, and if she didn't figure that out, they weren't going to get far. She saw them all now as possible allies and adversaries in her revenge.
"And you're the clan Leader?" Lilia asked the older woman.
"Yes, I'm Hona Fasa Sorai," the woman said. Her gray curls were knotted away from her face with blue ribbons, a touch even more extravagant than her daughter Mohrai's coiffed hair. "And you've met my daughter Mohrai. And this man is Elder Ora Naldri of Para's Temple."
"Yes, I think I've seen him before," Lilia said, the memory kindling. Naldri, the great barrel of a man, with the meaty fists and shoulders that always seemed ready to burst from his tunic. She never understood why he didn't have one tailored to fit him properly. "This woman with me is Taigan. She is a sanisi, and my mentor in many things."
She saw Naldri's heavy white brows rise at that, but decided not to clarify in exactly what ways this Saiduan person had come to act as more a mentor to her than anyone in Dhai.
Lilia approached the broad round table. The table itself, like the table in the Assembly Chamber of Oma's Temple, was embedded with a mosaic map. This one was of Clan Sorai, from the southern border where it met Clan Adama to the jutting piers of the harbor. She saw the long thread of the obsidian cliffs that ringed the coast stretching from the eastern mountains that separated them from Dorinah, and all the way west, to the woodlands. It was a perfect barrier to keep what came from the sea in the sea.
She saw yellow rings set along the harbor. She counted fifty, the same number as the boats. Blue rings along the gates. Blue, green, and violet rings – set further apart – along the black coast.
"These are the jista groups?" Lilia asked, pointing at the rings.
Naldri nodded. "I committed a dozen of our best parajistas to this effort."
"How many on the wall at any time?"
"I think–" Mohrai said.
"The Kai asked her here," Hona said.
Naldri cleared his throat, and rolled his meaty shoulders, as if from long habit. "Six are at the wall. They work in shifts."
"How long are the shifts? An hour? Twelve hours? How many are up there at any one time?"
"Three," he said.
"So," Lilia said, pointing to the boats, "if there is an omajista and three parajistas on each of these boats, and they decide, this instant, to send a blast of air at us to knock down these gates, those two jistas will counter it?"
Hona said, "We don't expect–"
"I have been there," Lilia said. She did not have height, or age. She did not have a reputation. But she had been there, and she was an omajista, and that made her uniquely suited to be here. But they needed to see it. "I've seen the army that waits for us. And as an omajista, I know what they can do if they have a mind to."
"We don't have the resources–" Hona began.
"Then you should open the gates," Lilia said. "Because we are already done."
"If we are discussing an assault as opposed to a defense," Hona said, "we should consult Ghrasia Madah."
"She is busy," Lilia said. "I've been tasked with this issue by the Kai. Or was that not clear?"
"Now wait–" Mohrai said.
Taigan shifted toward her, grinned wolfishly. Mohrai seemed to reconsider.
Lilia looked for the heaps of rings on the table, and found the store near Naldri. She shuffled over to him, dragging her twisted leg behind her, and ignored the stares. Let them look.
Lilia took up the rings and began to place teams of jistas along the wall, and the coast. "We need a wall of air up now, maintained by a parajista permanently posted to these gates. There needs to be a dozen up there, at least. We have three omajistas here now, as well – me, Taigan, and Tulana, my Seeker. One of us needs to be up there too, at all times."
"We don't know what they're waiting for," Hona said. "They could attack tomorrow, or not at all."
"If you think they will not attack at all," Lilia said, "if the Kai thought they would not attack at all, he would not have sent me here. None of us would be here."
"You'd be out fucking, likely," Taigan said.
"You're being rude," Lilia said. She did not like Taigan's smirk. Taigan could offer help, but she wasn't, as usual. She preferred to laugh at them, at the futility of it all. That angered her; Lilia felt a trembling seam of Oma's power flitter beneath her skin, and took a breath to calm herself. Anger would win her no allies, and she needed allies.
She began again. "We'll need more than the parajistas at Para's Temple, of course. I don't know how you go about summoning more militia, but we'll need more of that, too."
Hona crossed her arms. "We're coming up on planting season. The more bodies I pull out of the clans, the less likely we are to be able to feed ourselves in two months."
"Dhai has stores, surely?" Lilia said.
"One year," Hona said. She pushed one of her blue ribbons behind her ear. Lilia thought it must be distracting, to have all those things in one's hair. "But that's people living on nothing but rice and woodland foraging. Those aren't going to be people who can fight."
"I expect many will find they can fight just fine when it's their homes burning," Lilia said.
Taigan sighed. "You will lose this way."
"Taigan, you're–"
"No." She shook her head. "You are thinking this is a fair battle. But you have no navy, and two of their legions number more than your entire population. If you want to win, it won't be a clean fight."
Lilia stared at the lines of rings in the harbor. "Have any of you thought of anything clever, then?"
Mohrai snorted. "These are classic battle tactics."
Lilia glanced over at Hasina. "Boats burn," she said.
"Well, sure," Hasina said.
"And parajistas can hold their breath a long time, can't they?" Lilia asked Naldri.
"Of course, it's a matter of the Litany of–"
"Then I have a way we can surprise them."
"There's still a chance they won't attack," Hona said. "If we provoke them, it could undo a more peaceful solution the Kai has planned."
"If the Kai intended peace, he would not have sent you two omajistas, one of them a sanisi," Lilia said. "If we are going to succeed, we must play the aggressor."
"I find it abhorrent, the idea of fighting a foe who's not shown us any aggression," Naldri said.
"I have seen their aggression. I'm comfortable striking first," Lilia said. "I'd try to burn those boats myself, but they'd see a wave of bloody mist coming at them. What they won't see are parajista swimmers lobbing sinajista-trained fire bursts onto their decks."
"That's bold," Taigan said.
"We are bold, or we are buried," Lilia said. "Do you have a better idea?"
"I intend to take up farming," Taigan said. "Perhaps a wood carving profession of some kind."
"A little late for a change," Lilia said.
"You'd be surprised," Taigan said. "I once knew an alewife who became a painter."
"Could we please discuss this?" Hasina said. "First, we do not have the sinajistas here who can do that. The sort of pattern we'd have to make for… what, fifty boats? That's not an easy task with Sina descendent. The nearest sinajista I know with the sensitivity to do that is at least four days away, and it will take her another week to complete all those. You'll have to have a parajista on hand while she makes them to knot them into an air pouch, as well, if you want the parajistas to throw them. Jistas who must work together to complete a task like this… that takes time. It's not something you wave your hand at."
"Then I'll rely on you," Lilia said, "to make sure it's done."
Hasina pursed her mouth, and glanced at Hona. Hona gave a slight nod.
"I could walk away from here," Lilia said. "Any of us could. But we're not. So let's do something they won't expect. These people destroyed Saiduan. And Taigan is right – they are better fighters, and there more of them. They will expect us to…" She hesitated. The Tai Mora would know their tactics, wouldn't they? They were the same people the Dhai learned them from.
"We can't use anything we learned in the temples, can we, Taigan?" she asked.
Taigan shrugged. "Just know they learned the same."
"What advantage do we have, then?" Mohrai said.
"None," Taigan said.
Lilia sighed. "Taigan –"
"None save this," Taigan said. "You are fighting an enemy with your faces, and some twisted version of your culture. You know their minds better than we did."
"No," Lilia said. "They might as well be from some foreign star, Taigan. They are nothing like us."
Taigan cocked her head at Lilia. Lilia felt the weight of her stare; amusement more than accusation.
"You know what I mean," Lilia said.
"How old are you?" Hasina asked.
"Does that matter?" Lilia said.
"Sometimes it does," Mohrai said. "You hardly look twelve, if a day."
"If I had not reached the age of consent, I would not be here," Lilia said. "I'll be eighteen in the winter. I have not been a child for some time."
"If I was on fire and a child offered a bucket of water, I'd take it," Taigan said. "Wouldn't you?"
Hasina tapped the new line of colored rings along the map of the gates with her long, bony finger. "We'll take the bucket," she said.
|
(Worldbreaker Saga 2) The Empire Ascendant
|
Kameron Hurley
|
[
"fantasy",
"LGBT",
"science fiction fantasy"
] |
[] |
Chapter 18
|
Nasaka thought she knew the basements of Oma's Temple as well as its Kais. But no more. And that frustrated her, to run a country where anyone in it knew something she did not. Ahkio's foray into the basements, running after whatever it was Kirana had risked her life to cover up, had not gone unnoticed, nor had his secret councils with his closest Oras. But Nasaka knew something more of the matters that Kirana suspected. She knew Etena had been feeding Kirana information for years, from exile. Etena knew things about this temple that turn the tide of the war.
What she didn't know was where they'd hidden Etena.
But she knew someone who had.
Nasaka strolled down to the second level of the basements, through a little-used door for which she had the only key, and walked down a short corridor. Just four doors. Four cells. The only holding cells in the entire temple.
Nasaka pushed open the storage room door. Meyna lay on the floor, huffing and hacking. She had picked up some bronchial infection that left her hocking great gobs of snot. Her face was a mess. Her child was, blessedly, quiet; it clung to her breast with great, plump hands. Nasaka thought it kind to keep the child with her, for a time. Using the child as a means to break her would work better if she was well attached to it, and that often took time. Months, it turned out.
"And how are you today?" Nasaka asked.
"Go fuck yourself," Meyna said.
"You sound like a seafaring Tordinian this morning." Every morning, in truth. Nasaka understood what Ahkio had seen in her, despite her politically unsuitable upbringing. Meyna had borne a child here on a cold floor strewn with straw, alone. Nasaka left no one to watch over her down here, and the birth happened overnight, between her evening feeding and when Elaiko returned in the morning with breakfast. Elaiko said she was shocked at the amount of blood and afterbirth. Nasaka sometimes forgot how young Elaiko was.
The whole thing reminded Nasaka of her own three days in a bloody childbed, so racked with exhaustion and cramped with fear and pain that she thought she would die. Birth was an unending torment. She admitted something in her admired Meyna's stubborn will and significant health.
"And you're a nattering old crow," Meyna said. Her tone was haughty, but she pulled the child closer.
"Are you ready to assist me?"
"I'm not doing anything for you."
"You may not have a choice, soon." Nasaka leaned in the doorway. "You and that child put the Kai, and this country, at risk. Unless you want exile, or death, the option I offer is your only choice."
Meyna slowly drew the child from her lap and set it into a cushion of straw. It stirred, but did not wake. Nasaka watched it. Ahkio's child, no doubt. Nasaka saw her own face in the child's, the bold nose and broad cheeks. It mattered little, of course, who a child's father was in Dhai. Descent ran through the mother's side, always. Who Meyna chose to bring to bed was of little consequence. Men married for economic stability, and a desire for love, children, companionship. Who actually fathered a child didn't often come into argument.
Not unless the child's father was the Kai.
"So what are we going to do with you, then?" Nasaka asked.
Meyna stood. Nasaka watched her, waiting.
"This won't end well," Meyna said.
"Not for you, no," Nasaka said. "But I might spare the child."
"You wouldn't harm me. Ahkio will find out. What will happen then?"
"What makes you think it wasn't Ahkio who had you put here?"
Meyna laughed. She threw her head back when she did it, a petty bit of theater that might have fooled a younger woman. But Nasaka saw the fear in her eyes and the slight tremor in her jaw. Meyna was good at games, for a young woman. But they were all games Nasaka had played for far longer, and with much more success.
"Ahkio is just a boy," Meyna said, "and only you would tell me to go find his mad Aunt Etena to take his seat." She stepped forward. "I wonder, Ora Nasaka… what changed? You wanted him to be Kai so badly, but now you want to give it to someone else? Why? Because of me? My child?"
Nasaka called on Sina; recited the Litany of Breath to call a glimmer of Sina's power beneath her skin. It was difficult to draw on, now that Sina was descendent, but she noted a subtle shift in the amount she could pull. Sina would come around again, very soon. Nasaka trembled, just a little, in anticipation.
Meyna kept walking toward her as she spoke. "I bound him to me," she said. "He'll walk through fire for me, if I ask it."
Nasaka bound the violet mist of Sina into a simple knot, and absently waved her hand, tossing the bundle of violet energy into the straw bundle.
Meyna leapt at her.
Nasaka side stepped her neatly. Caught her by the wrist. Twisted her arm back, pushed her head down. Then she let out her breath, and the violet burst of Sina's energy exploded. The straw ignited.
The baby cried.
Meyna yelled.
Nasaka released her. Meyna ran to the child, pulling it from the flaming straw. She wrapped the child in her arms and kicked at the flames, throwing bits of burning straw into the air. Nasaka watched it all from the doorway. The child was screaming, screaming, far more than the fire warranted. Fear, not pain.
Meyna pressed herself into a corner. The air was filled with the smell of burnt straw. Nasaka saw a few errant embers, but didn't care much for them. There was only so much straw in the room, and certainly not enough to kill Meyna and her child if it all burned up.
"Don't think I'm as stupid as he is," Nasaka said. "I've been running this country longer than you've been alive, and I'll go on doing it long after you're dead."
Meyna's eyes filled, but instead of a sob, she grimaced. The child would not stop screaming. It was starting to rattle Nasaka's nerves. She stepped out of the cell.
"Ora Nasaka!"
Nasaka hesitated; left the door open a few inches.
Meyna remained in the corner, showing her teeth. The child screamed. Meyna shouted over it. "You don't deserve this country," Meyna said. "Neither did Etena."
"Nor do you," Nasaka said. "Ahkio may not have seen through your ploy, but I did. You hoped to set a precedent. Hoped that child would be a way to a seat upstairs. But you will always be a mewling, insignificant little brat from clan Mutao. A Mutao who will die here, alone and unremembered, unless you do as I say."
"Worse people have tried to make me do what they willed," Meyna said. "You won't have better luck. My mother said Etena cast herself into Mount Ahya."
"Where is your mother?"
Meyna pulled her child closer. Then, "Give me a bath. Give me a bath, and I'll tell you. It won't matter if you find my mother anyway. She'll never give up Etena."
Nasaka nodded. "Fair trade, then," she said. "I may even give you a clean skirt."
Meyna stared into her child's face.
Sugar won more often than salt. Nasaka had forgotten that. "I'll bring you a blanket and clean clothes," Nasaka said smoothly. "You never did get on with your family, did you? What does it matter if I know where she is?"
"Bring a map," Meyna said.
Nasaka shut the door.
Elaiko stood outside, hands in the deep pockets of her tunic. "Should I make some tea?" she asked.
"That would be lovely," Nasaka said.
Meyna yelled after them, "My mother will never give Etena up! Not for my life! Not for my child's! Do you hear that?"
They started back up through the corridor. There were other rooms here Nasaka had set aside for prisoner interrogations, her own semi-secret gaol, but when she brought in Meyna she had them cleared out, including Almeysia. She had found out enough about Almeysia to know that the one they had wasn't theirs anyway. She was some agent of the Tai Mora's, sent here for a dark purpose that Nasaka still wasn't certain about. Almeysia would not speak for sugar or salt.
Only six people knew Meyna was here, and that was three too many for Nasaka's comfort. Already the temple was taking sides – her against Ahkio. But she was not fool enough to move her hand until she had Etena. Ahkio should have just let her be, but things were too far gone now. She needed someone she controlled who could get into those basements. Ahkio was turning into something else. If she could not control him, she could not protect him. She mourned that.
"Has there been progress on Yisaoh?" Elaiko asked. "I know you had someone looking for her."
"Too inquisitive for your own good."
"Just looking to stay on top of things. We've had… some unfortunate incidents in Garika. And they are not improving."
"I'm aware."
"Of course."
Nasaka kept the silence as they ascended into the upper tiers of the temple. Two barred and sealed doors – sealed by both sinajista and tirajista traps, just in case. Nasaka had always appreciated Elaiko's silence. She had a gift for understanding when it was appropriate to speak, and when it was not, a virtue Nasaka did not often find in young people.
They walked up into the hall outside the bath house, one story below the temple proper, and five floors above the gaol.
"I have an errand," Nasaka said. "Meet me in my study. An hour, perhaps. After your prayers."
"Of course. I'll bring the tea."
It did help that Elaiko could make a very good cup of tea.
Nasaka crossed through the Temple of Oma, and started up the grand stairway. Nasaka went up five flights to the guest quarters. Most quests were kept on the second and third floors; only Dhai were permitted up further. But in this instance, well... Nasaka supposed her guest more or less counted.
She knocked on a banded door of amber wood.
"Do enter!"
Nasaka pushed open the door.
A slim young woman stood silhouetted in the great window looking out over the brilliant green expanse of the Pana Woodlands. Her hair was chopped and crimped into some odd Dorinah style, as if attacked with a razor and burnt. Her grin split her face.
"Greetings, Ora Nasaka, on this fine morning!"
"Good morning, Sai Hofsha," Nasaka said. "I'm sorry this has all taken so much longer than you anticipated."
It still unnerved her, how much Tai Mora like Hofsha looked like Nasaka's own people. Clearly, their manners and postures were foreign, but in profile, at first glance, Hofsha could have been some Sorila businesswoman come to talk about tariffs.
Hofsha's grin never wavered. "That's no matter," she said. "I'm sure he'll come to his senses in time. They always do. Generally." She gestured back to the window. "Has that woodland always been so dangerous?"
"It's the world Faith Ahya and Hahko recorded when they first crossed over from Dorinah," Nasaka said. "It has not changed much in all that time."
"We burned ours out," Hofsha said.
"I expected no less."
Hofsha picked up a hat from the bed. "Come, give me a tour of the temple," she said. "My Kai has asked me to begin assigning quarters for her people. It won't be long now."
|
(Worldbreaker Saga 2) The Empire Ascendant
|
Kameron Hurley
|
[
"fantasy",
"LGBT",
"science fiction fantasy"
] |
[] |
Chapter 19
|
Ahkio told no one when he went to visit the heart of the temple again, despite the known danger. Liaro had told him the stone was broken, so what was the harm? After two weeks in the temple, watching Hofsha stride about the grounds as if she already owned the place, he was running out of reasons to put her off. A few days before, he had seen Nasaka escorting Hofsha around the temple, showing her every room like she was a loved and respected guest. He spent most of his days talking over paper, and he was tired of his own inaction. He needed the temple keeper's advice. He needed to know what had happened to Almeysia. He needed to understand Nasaka's plan for the temple, and how he would subvert it, and his Oras were too often bickering with one another to provide him many answers.
He waited until he had sent Liaro on various errands, and Caisa was safely off at the Temple of Para. The only one who questioned where he was on occasion was Masura, who had taken up residence in the temple sometime after his ascension and had simply never left. When he asked Una why she tarried here, Una admitted that Masura had stepped down in all but name from her duties as Elder Ora of the Temple of Tira. He heard little from the harbor in all that time. Mohrai sent a missive that Lilia and the sanisi had arrived at the harbor and discussed strategy, but gave no details. He suspected that was prudent. Not even he knew how many in the temple were trustworthy. They were engaged in delay just as he was. Delaying the inevitable.
He visited the heart of the temple the second time in the midafternoon as a heavy thunderstorm rolled in over the plateau. Novices and drudges rushed throughout the temple, shuttering windows and doors against the storm's incursion.
Ahkio moved from this eerie darkness to the black basements, and put his hand on the stone for the second time in the flickering light of a flame fly lantern. As Liaro had said, the stone was broken. Ahkio examined it, wondering what it was he hoped to find. Whatever ward Almeysia had set on the stone must have done this damage, but to what end? To silence the keeper? To keep him from going through?
He raised his hand to the mark on the stone, just to be sure it was inactive, and—
–And he fell through the stone, or through time, or into the seams between worlds, and there he was again, standing in the brilliantly lit room, unstuck in time.
He had thought to find it ruined, or mired in darkness. But it was still broad daylight. The sky had not moved. The moon remained, and the double suns rode over the tongues of the mountains. He stood at the center of the room and waited for the keeper to appear. The whirling lighted numerals were gone now, though.
And so was the keeper.
He shivered. It seemed he wasn't the only one playing with forces he didn't understand.
Ahkio explored the room, poking at the large pieces of furniture, the end tables and desks. He half expected he would be able to pass his hands through them as he had through her, but they were solid. He rifled through what looked like large desks, but they contained no papers.
He called for the temple keeper, but received no answer. He began to feel vaguely alarmed, as if he trespassed on some sacred space. And perhaps he did. He found a set of double doors on the far side of the room, and tried to open them, but they were locked.
"Keeper?" Ahkio called, again.
Something wavered at the corner of his vision. He turned, but it blinked out. "Keeper?"
Nothing.
Ahkio tapped the walls, looking for some other way in or out. How did the keeper come and go? What was she, really?
"I want to speak to you again," Ahkio said. "I have more questions this time. I have–"
The floor beneath him rumbled softly. Ahkio froze. He gazed out the great windows. Something flickered in the sky there, a flashing star. He walked to the windows and found a faint trace of lettering there, as if someone had pressed their fingers to the pain and written letters. It was in the Kai cipher. But how did a ghost write on a window?
The same way a ghost became unstuck in time, perhaps.
He had been writing in the Kai cipher for so long that he was able to work it out in his head:
The Guide will show you to the engines at the heart of the temples. We will deliver the Guide. But you must lead the army.
Now go. She is coming for you.
A chill rose in the room. The floor rumbled again. The light went out.
He woke suddenly on the floor next to the stone. He was sweating heavily. He stared up at the stone, and it was then he heard a noise, the sound of feet scuffling across the floor. Someone else in the basements. He shuttered the lantern and lay still on the floor, breathing softly. How long had he been out this time?
He lay that way for an hour or more, listening to someone stumbling around in the darkness. He saw the light swinging somewhere in the tangle of the roots that made up this final basement of the temple, but it was far-off, indistinct. Even when it was well gone, when he heard nothing else, he lay there in the dark for a long time after.
She is coming, the keeper had said, but he didn't know if she meant Kirana, or Nasaka, or Hofsha, or any number of other people he didn't know about. Ahkio had spent a long time trying to avoid doing what he knew he needed to do, but it was time.
He stumbled upstairs into the light, and asked what day it was. The novice he asked looked at him as if he were mad, but told him. She gave him a date that must have been wrong – the date she gave was the day before he had entered the basements. And it was clearly evening, not the middle of the day.
"Are you… sure?" he asked.
She cocked her head at him. "Are you all right?"
"Fine," he said. He went to the scullery and asked a drudge. He found Shanigan in the banquet hall and asked the date. They all gave him the same date. He sat down next to Shanigan then, suddenly dizzy.
"What is it?" Shanigan said.
"We had a meeting today," Ahkio said. "You called me a fool boy."
Shanigan laughed. "That meeting is in a few hours," he said. "I thought you said you were going to rest upstairs? Why would I call you a fool? No, wait. I can think of several reasons."
Ahkio tried to work out why he would have gone back, and a terrible fear came over him. What if he wasn't in the right world at all? What if he hadn't gone through time, but he'd gone... somewhere else? Where was the "he" from the day before? He gazed at the staircase. Was he still up there, in bed? Were there two of him now?
He sprinted upstairs and burst in on Liaro. He was in a dance class with Ohanni. The whole class startled at his appearance.
"Liaro!" Ahkio said, breathless. He called him away into the hall. Liaro looked just the same way he had the day before. He asked him question after question. "Do I look the same? Are there two of me here? Who is Kai? Is Nasaka alive? What day is it, really? Who teaches mathematics?"
"What in Sina's name is going on?" Liaro said. "What did–" He came up short. Frowned. "You went down there again."
"I didn't lose time," Ahkio said. "I… I don't know what I did."
"You're going mad," Liaro said.
"I have an extra day, but… nothing of importance happened, not really. Why would I get an extra day that isn't important? Why would–"
"Because this is all mad," Liaro said firmly. "Ora Nasaka warned me–"
"When did you talk to Nasaka?"
"Who do you think is talking to Ora Nasaka for you now that you threw Caisa out? I don't care who she was, she was your ally – an ally to both of us – and that leaves me to ferry your little orders to Ora Nasaka while you avoid her."
Ahkio turned away from him and ran up two flights of stairs to the Assembly Chamber. He was out of breath by the time he reached his own quarters. He flung the doors open.
The room was empty, but the bed was unmade, as if he had indeed been sleeping in it. He walked to the side of the bed and pressed his hand to the sheets. They were still warm. He shivered.
He had moved, somehow, between one time and the next.
Liaro came into the room behind him, swearing and huffing. "What's going on?"
"I'm not here," Ahkio said.
"You aren't making sense."
"I have extra time," he said. "Why was I given extra time? Why did I jump from one day to another and back again?"
"Maybe it means nothing, Ahkio. It's not all signs and portents. The sky is in chaos. There are people from other worlds running around. Everything is mad and means nothing."
"No," Ahkio said firmly. "It's time." He turned to head back downstairs.
"Where are you going?"
"To Hofsha. Call Ora Jakobi and Ora Naori. Have them meet me in the foyer."
"No, wait–"
But Ahkio did not wait. He needed to put her out of the temple. She wasn't going to walk around like she owned it any longer. He had delayed enough. The longer she was here, the longer she and Nasaka schemed. The one thing he had not done the day before was finish things with Hofsha. He had let her stay here, continuing her long and oppressive occupation of their temple. Now was his chance to act.
He asked for and found Hofsha in the Sanctuary. The evening was warm. The light of the moons glittered against his skin. He moved as if he were in some dream. A day repeated. He had spent this day doing nothing but arguing over paper. He had spent the night alone while Liaro went out with Ohanni. A wasted day. He would not waste it again.
Hofsha raised her head when he entered. "Kai," she said, as he crossed the broad room. Her smile was large and ungainly, if only because it showed so many teeth. It put him in mind of the posturing of some predator.
"I've come with a response to your offer."
"So soon? I've enjoyed the hospitality of your temple the last two weeks. We can wait a while longer."
"Your boats block our harbor. It gave the impression you would like a quick resolution."
She returned the book she held to the shelf. He made note of it – she was in the section containing the epic romances, the great early stories of Faith Ahya and Hahko forging their way across the wilderness from Dorinah to Dhai. They were operatic tales of alliances and betrayals, hardship and the tornadic nature of love.
"Where is Ora Nasaka?" she asked. The smile remained. Her tone was light.
"I fear you may have been mistaken about Nasaka's role in this country," Ahkio said. "She is my religious and political advisor. To that end, I'm happy to listen to her counsel on all matters. But at days' end, I must be the one to speak for Dhai."
"Of course," Hofsha said. She folded her hands in front of her.
He squared his stance, but did not take a step back. "I appreciate your own Kai's… your… Empress? Well, I appreciate that she took the time to make this offer. We've been happy to host you. Unfortunately, I'll need you to tell her–"
Hofsha raised a hand. Her smile was less boisterous now. She showed no teeth. "Before you continue, I urge you to remember our ships lie ready." She leaned over, and picked up the cage of birds. She set them on the table beside her. The birds twittered madly, fluttering their little wings, hurling themselves at the cage.
"I remember."
She folded her hands again, standing just behind the cage so he had to look past it to see her. "Very well."
He hesitated. The droop of her shoulders, the look of resignation, surprised him. "How many others have you made this offer to?"
"A few."
"And how many take it?"
"Not enough," Hofsha said. The birds rattled the cage.
"You know, then, that I must refuse."
"Perhaps you should speak to Ora Nasaka again," Hofsha said. "I could stay another day or two–"
"I'm afraid that's my final word, Hofsha. Now you will leave peaceably."
She reached for her hat on the table, a broad-brimmed thing that Ahkio had only ever seen Aaldians wear. She ran her fingers over the brim.
"Spring is here," Hofsha said, "and that's not so bad, is it? You'll be dead before you have to see another winter." She put on her hat, and took up the cage with the other hand.
"What are those for?" he asked.
"Oh, these?" she held the cage aloft, smiled brightly. "I love birds. I love to cage them, you see, because when you first do it, they fight so terribly hard. They are so alive, so defiant. I measure how long it takes for them to lose their spirit. To stop fighting. To resign themselves to their fate."
"And how long does that take?"
"It depends," she said.
"I'm sure there are some who never give up," he said.
"Oh no," she said. "They all give up, eventually. They are all in a cage, you see. There is no way out." She touched the brim of her hat and strode to the door, swinging the cage.
"Hofsha?"
She paused, hand on the door. "Kai?" Hopeful.
"What were you looking for in Saiduan?"
She grinned. "A very good question, isn't it?"
Hofsha opened the doors, and left him.
Ahkio stood alone in the Sanctuary for a long time, wondering what would happen on the day Nasaka decided he wasn't worth saving anymore, either. Would she burn the temple down around them?
The door opened, and, as if thinking summoned her, Nasaka entered. "Was that Hofsha I saw in the foyer? Tell me you didn't speak a word without me. Tell me you had the sense to call on Ghrasia and Mohrai first."
"It will take time for Hofsha to–"
"No it won't, you fool," Nasaka said. "You're lucky Liaro came for me. They open tears between worlds to send messages. That invasion is going to start. There's no time to warn the harbor. They could be inundated as we speak."
"How do you know that, Nasaka? How do you know how they communicate?" He knew, though. He had always known.
"The invasion has been primed for just this moment. All she waited on was your refusal."
He pushed past her and into the hall.
"Where are you going?" she asked.
"We need strong lines of supply," Ahkio said. "You'll be stepping down as my political and religious advisor. I'll be appointing Ora Shanigan."
"What?"
"You're confined to your quarters," Ahkio said, "until further notice."
Nasaka barked out a laugh. "And who will hold me."
Ahkio peered further down the corridor where Jakobi and Naori waited. He called for them, and turned back to Nasaka. He had thought he would need their help to escort Hofsha out. It was a bitter irony that it was not Hofsha he had to use force against.
"We'll start with Ora Jakobi and Ora Naori," Ahkio said. "I have no problem using the gifted arts against a woman who refuses my order."
"You're very lucky my star is in decline," Nasaka said, low. "You have committed us to war."
"No," Ahkio said. "You did that when you betrayed me this country."
|
(Worldbreaker Saga 2) The Empire Ascendant
|
Kameron Hurley
|
[
"fantasy",
"LGBT",
"science fiction fantasy"
] |
[] |
Chapter 20
|
Lilia sat in a tiny room nestled in the harbor's eastern gate, rubbing her twisted foot. The stairs were laborious, never-ending. Everyone wanted to meet on every which floor, without a care that it took her three times as long to navigate them as everyone else. She grimaced and bore it, but the pain was getting worse. It was one of those days when the idea of Taigan cutting off her leg and taking a year to regrow it didn't sound so bad. She had spent two weeks at the harbor wall arguing with people about how to execute what she thought was a very simple plan, but it turned out she was better at coming up with plans than convincing people to follow them.
Lilia had taken the Line to Kuallina twice in that time to check on the refugees. They were having trouble finding places in the clans for them. No one wanted them, even the smaller family groups. She spent endless hours arguing with Gorosa Malia Osono, the head of the hold, about his efforts to place the refugees. His attitude was no better than that of the Kai. She could feel his disdain for them, and for her.
Lilia tried to keep their spirits up. Eventually, if every clan took in a few, they could blend seamlessly in with the rest of Dhai. It would just… take time. Time, she admitted, that Dhai did not have. What were the Tai Mora waiting for? How much longer before they moved?
Dusk had fallen. She had left Taigan and Gian to eat downstairs, and climbed back up here hungry. It was preferable to the company that met in the dining hall. One of the things she liked, living in Oma's Temple, was being invisible. Hardly anyone noticed her but Roh. Even when she routed someone at a strategy game, she was so unremarkable otherwise, it never drew their ire. But perhaps, as Taigan said, that invisibility had been her mother's gift to her, seared into her flesh with the ward Taigan had later removed.
Pain still shot up her twisted leg. She winced and lay back on the bed. There was just one narrow window. From there she could see the misty green lights of the Tai Mora lanterns stretching across the water as they lit them, one by one. It was beautiful, really, this view of the enemy. The sound of the water and bobbing of the lights put her to sleep every night.
The door opened, and Gian entered. She had found more suitable clothes – a long clean blue tunic stitched in silver and bright red trousers that fit her remarkably well after she tailored them to her own frame.
"Rice?" Gian asked. She pulled a sticky rice ball from her tunic pocket.
Lilia shook her head. Her stomach growled.
"I can hear that," Gian said. She sat next to Lilia on the bed. "I worry when you sit up here alone."
"I don't like people very much." It was the voices she couldn't stand. People speaking in loud voices about things they didn't understand, making what sounded like factual assertions about the enemy – about who they were, where they came from – that were utter nonsense. She wondered that the Kai hadn't done a better job telling people about the enemy. But how to give people that message without causing panic? That was a challenge, wasn't it?
"I can handle the people," Gian said, "if you like. I don't mind talking to people."
"Is that what you did in Dorinah?"
Gian began to eat the rice ball.
Lilia folded her hands across her stomach, and let the silence stretch.
"I refused to go to the Seekers," Gian said. "Is that what you wanted to hear? Some terrible story about my life?"
Lilia pushed herself up on her elbows. "Of course you're gifted, just like–" Like my Gian, she wanted to say, but that was unfair. "You're a parajista?"
"That's a good guess. That's what they said. I don't notice much of anything. I can't do the things you can do… it's just… I'm aware of Para. I can see the blue mist, sometimes. But that's all."
"Why didn't you go into training?"
"Do you know how dajian jistas are treated, among the Seekers? No, you wouldn't. We burn out very quickly. They use us at the front lines, like dogs. They'd rather risk us than each other."
"So you–"
"I killed a woman," Gian said. She didn't look at Lilia, but she had ceased eating.
Lilia moved closer. "May I hug you, Gian? Do you need comfort?"
Gian shook her head. She wiped her face with her sleeve. "That's what happened. That's all. I ran away to the Daorian. They didn't know who I was, so I got sold into the scullery without being tested. But someone found out, the daughter to the Empress's secretary. She had me thrown onto a cart and dumped at that camp."
"I'm sorry," Lilia said. She thought of Kalinda teaching the first Gian how to pull on Para in secret, so she didn't have to join the temples. Different worlds, different lives, but far too many parallels. It was the parallels that bothered Lilia. How could two places be so different, but its people so much the same?
"I'm tired of talking about terrible things," Gian said. "All we ever do is talk about terrible things, did you know that? Weeks of terrible things."
"With Emlee, we didn't."
"I miss Emlee," Gian said. "Do you think that rumor is true, that she came in with the last of the refugees?"
"We'll look for her at Kuallina after things here are done."
Gian looked out across the water at the green lights. "What are they waiting for?"
"Orders," Lilia said. "Mohrai is finally sending swimmers out in the morning to do reconnaissance."
"Swimmers?"
"It was something I worked out with Elder Ora Naldri," Lilia said. She had kept quiet about her idea outside the campaign room, mostly because she wasn't sure anyone was going to do anything with it after all. "I asked him if parajistas ever used Para to breathe longer. He said yes – they just make this bubble of air around their bodies. It doesn't last long, but long enough to make it from the black cliffs to the ships and back."
"What then?"
Lilia swung her feet off the bed. Her leg still throbbed, but she noticed it less now. She pulled over the strategy board she kept near her bed, the one she had lined with stone markers to represent the ships, and sticks for the gates.
"Sinajistas can create these tangled bursts of energy with Para, like a packet of flame, and they go off when the jista says so. They're hard to make, and they can't be very large. It takes a lot of effort to make them with Sina descendent, and Elder Ora Naldri only has one sinajista strong enough to make them, but I've seen them work. I think they could set fire to the ships."
"Couldn't they put them out with Para?"
"The parajistas are going to put wards on them, so they're immune to parajistas."
"Omajistas?"
"That's what me and Taigan are for."
Gian regarded the board. "Conflict is complicated, with jistas."
"It's like anything else," Lilia said. "You have to think ahead of your opponent."
Gian jabbed a finger at the stone markers. "They aren't going to expect us to attack them first?"
"They think we're going to wait, the way we've been doing. That's our advantage. They think we're pacifists."
"Aren't we?"
Lilia frowned. "I still have to convince some people. They don't want to listen. They think there's a peaceful solution. But I've been there, Gian. I've seen the army. I know."
Gian reached for her hand, hesitated. "May I hold your hand?"
Lilia nodded.
Gian took her clawed hand into her warm, calloused one. "We'll win with you here. You're the smartest, the most powerful–"
Lilia felt heat rising on her face. She pulled her hand away. "You don't have to flatter me. I'm not some special person."
"You're brave."
"It's not brave to send other people off to die," Lilia said. "Those parajistas are brave. Ghrasia is brave."
"Can I… that's… would you mind if I… Lilia, I would like to kiss you."
"Yes," Lilia said.
Gian leaned into her, and for a long, lovely moment, Lilia allowed herself to imagine it was the other Gian pressing her lips to hers.
"I need you," Lilia said, "your hands on me. Please touch me, take me away from here. Do you consent?"
Gian needed nothing else. She pulled at Lilia's tunic and pressed her back onto the bed. Her hot mouth found Lilia's breast, and every part of Lilia seemed to light up like the boats on the water. A warm, desperate desire flushed through her whole body. She yanked at Gian's clothes. Her long black hair tickled Lilia's face.
"Gian," Lilia said, and she remembered the way Gian's body had moved in the woodlands – shirtless Gian, swinging her machete. Gian, who had massaged her cramping legs and feet. Gian, who had told her, wounded and delirious, that she loved her.
Gian tugged off Lilia's trousers and pressed her lips between Lilia's legs. Lilia gasped.
The boats. The lights in the boats.
The only light came now from the moons and boats, and the sickly green glow of them suffused Lilia's room. The lights were different, though. They blinked on and off, as if someone were shuttering and unshuttering the lanterns.
Lilia gasped. She cupped Gian's head with her good hand, tangling her fingers in her hair. "Please!" She wasn't even sure what she was asking, but Gian pulled her hips closer.
The lights in the harbor went out.
Lilia squeezed her eyes shut. She released Gian's hair and gripped the sheets, cried out.
The door banged open.
Lilia jerked away from Gian. Gian raised her head. Lilia resisted the urge to drag her closer. Her heart was pounding loudly now, with more than just desire.
"Lilia–" Taigan strode in. She hesitated a half moment, frowning at the two of them. "Get dressed," Taigan said. She took Lilia's clothes off the floor and threw them at her.
"You're rude," Lilia said.
"I hope you've had a pleasant evening," Taigan said. "The ships just docked at the piers."
Gian wiped her mouth on the sheets and pulled on her tunic. "The Tai Mora ships?"
"Are there any other ships?" Taigan snapped.
Lilia pulled on her linen undergarments, and her trousers. "Why are they attacking now?" She was trembling, a terrible mix of emotions.
"If I knew that, I'd be King of the Dhai."
"We don't have a king."
"Maybe you should. Mohrai wants you on the wall. They've called all the parajistas, too. The Seekers will meet you there. Hurry."
|
(Worldbreaker Saga 2) The Empire Ascendant
|
Kameron Hurley
|
[
"fantasy",
"LGBT",
"science fiction fantasy"
] |
[] |
Chapter 21
|
It was a good day for an invasion.
"Tear it open," Kirana said.
She stood on a broad wooden walkway erected for just this purpose – to help propel her army over the swamp and through the gate as quickly as possible, before it closed. In the other world, the new world, there was a lake where she stood. On this side her people had filled it in long before, but as the climate changed with the blazing star, the glaciers on the surrounding mountains had sloughed off and turned the lowlands into a tepid swamp.
The mirror was broken. Every good commander had two or three alternate plans, but this was the one she liked the least. With Saiduan all but routed, its libraries sacked, she needed to turn her attention to the next phase of their invasion: cross over into the now weakened Dorinah, the country with the softest and largest rent between her world and the next. She could take out Dorinah and get her people safely established there, just in time for planting season. That gave her the summer to continue to hammer at Dhai, though she expected it would not take that long, not unless they figured out what she wanted there before she had it.
Across the swampy marsh, Yisaoh watched them from atop a great white bear. She wore a massive brown cap, her hair twisted around its base in black braids, knotted in tiny beads and bells. She was the most extraordinary person Kirana had ever seen, and she suspected now, even preparing to cross into another world, that Yisaoh would remain so. Her heart ached, and for a wild moment she wished she had permitted their children to watch. But the children were very young, and the outcome of this breach was uncertain. Kirana could lose half her army if the gate collapsed while they were still in transit. She had lost countless thousands to failed gates in the early days of the war. It's why she had devoted so much time to the mirror. Another failed endeavor.
"On my command," Gaiso, Kirana's parajista company general, said. She was a plump woman with broad hands and features. It had been a boon her shadow was already killed in some petty skirmish on the other side. Kirana hadn't wanted to settle for the second.
Kirana braced herself. Those unfamiliar with tearing open the way between worlds often thought the end of the line was a safer place to be, but she knew better. As the first one through, right up alongside the omajistas who opened the thing, she could get herself clear of any blowback. Sometimes when the way opened it imploded, yes – but an implosion didn't affect those who had already gone through. If she ended up in the wrong world, well – that's why she only stepped through next to an omajista. Her own skills with the dark star didn't bend in that direction, much to her frustration.
Fourteen omajistas raised their hands. All around the field, for as far as Kirana could see, were cart after cart of jars filled with blood. When the omajistas said what they had brought was not sufficient, Kirana had killed another fourteen of her own people, drawn by lot, and piled their bodies, too, at the edge of the swamp. It was amazing what a person would put up with, when freedom from certain death was so close. Many turned on comrades, men and women they had fought with most of their lives.
The jars burst. Kirana stood her ground. Did not close her eyes. Did not cover her ears. This was the greatest expenditure they had ever made, and she had to be present and aware. Because they would end up in a lake, she'd had to remove her armor. Behind her, the twenty thousand troops she intended to bring with her were a nearly-nude bunch, scratching at the dark seeds of the weapons in their wrists.
The air shuddered. A great weight descended on them, and something more – wind. A wind so hot and sudden Kirana caught her breath.
A black storm of blood poured into the sky from the shattered jars, a wave so mortifying that Kirana had woken screaming for three months after seeing her first. Now it looked like freedom to her. Promise.
It looked like survival.
The bloody gate coagulated ahead of her. She felt the soft crimson mist against her face. Her ears popped. The blood folded in on itself, as if devouring its own substance from the inside out. A seam opened in the world, a massive tear. Kirana saw a cold blue lake shining before her on the other side. Dark trees. Low mountains.
Gaiso barked at her parajistas. The wind kicked up again. The lake ahead of them on the other side rippled, then went still.
"It's solid," Gaiso said, and stepped through the tear in the worlds and onto the invisible bridge of air now riding the surface of the lake.
Kirana could not see work done by parajistas – she was a tirajista with some sensitivity to Oma – but if Gaiso said it was good, she trusted it.
She wanted to say something hopeful or inspiring, but her feet were already moving. She didn't even look up at the black, toxic star in her sky. Only when she stepped onto the hard surface above the glassy lake did she look back once, at Yisaoh. But the angle was all wrong: Kirana could no longer see her. And she needed to move, move, move because her army was coming behind her, and the longer they were on the bridge, the more vulnerable they were.
"Fan out," Gaiso said to her parajistas, and as they came through, the hundred parajistas leaped out across the water, skipping on it like stones, to take scouting positions along the perimeter of the lake.
Kirana did not release her weapon, but she stayed at the center of the next wave, a mixed contingent of tirajistas and regular infantry. The scouts said the area was clear. With the Empress's Seekers scattered to the winds and most of the country's publicly-owned Dhai slaves dead, there was little to impede their progress.
As they marched across the lake, Kirana's stomach churned. She tried to look straight ahead. She couldn't swim, and losing the bridge would be embarrassing at best – deadly at worst.
Gaiso glanced over at her. "Not seeing any movement."
"It's quiet here this time of year," Kirana said. "I'll be confident when the whole army's through, though."
"She's not a fool," Gaiso said.
Kirana made a pinched motion with her hand. She had no interest in discussing the Empress of Dorinah within hearing of half her army. She was well aware the Empress wasn't a fool. If she had given over her Seekers and the dajians so easily, it meant she was confident she had something else she could use against them. Something far worse.
The Empress had sent a company to Tordin. For whatever purpose she sent them there, it left her even more vulnerable. And unlike tiny little Dhai, Dorinah had enough land to support a vast number of Kirana's people. If the end came in the next few months instead of the next year, she'd have at least saved this many. It was a risk to move now, but far riskier to wait.
Kirana jumped from the bridge of air onto dry land, and resisted the urge to kiss it.
The tirajistas closed ranks. Kirana moved further up the shoreline to wait for the mounts and supply carts.
Her infantry commander's squire, Lohin, met her on the low rise. "The squad's about done with the way house," he said, motioning to the squat little building on the opposite shore. "Should be cleared out shortly." Lohin was a mean-faced little man, wiry and stooped. She was not particularly taken with his talent on the field, but he was Yisaoh's brother, and she'd promised Yisaoh she'd get him to the other side, one way or another.
"I'll wait for your mother's all clear on that," Kirana said.
Lohin's jaw hardened, but he only pressed thumb to forehead and trudged back down the path. She imagined it would not be so terrible, to serve as squire to one's mother, but Lohin resented every hand she offered him. He didn't even have the good sense to thank her for getting him across. Kirana watched his back, wondering if she should tell him the murder of his shadow had been accidental, and if it'd been up to her, she'd have continued to leave that particular death up to chance until the bitter end.
But here they were.
When she heard the all-clear for the way house, Kirana made her way there, where her pages were already mopping up the blood and pushing together the inn tables. Six bodies were stacked outside.
The infantry commander, Rasina, stood just inside the door, arms crossed. "Got someone for you to see," she said.
Kirana gestured at the pile of bodies. "That not all of them?"
Rasina laughed. She was a long, lean woman – Lohin's mother through marriage, not birth – and she had a warmer face. "Sure isn't," she said, and gestured Kirana upstairs.
Kirana's wrist itched. Her everpine weapon already tasted her unease. "You going to give me a hint?" Kirana said, trying to keep her tone light. She had had enough horrible things happen in this horrible war to last eight lifetimes.
Rasina glanced back. Grinned. She came to the top of the stairs and opened a guestroom door wide. The air inside was heavy. Two parajistas and an omajista stood in the room, their specialties clear from the symbols on their collars.
A woman lay prone in the bed, arms held stiffly at her sides, obviously bound by the jistas. It took only half a breath for Kirana to recognize her.
"Oma's eye," Kirana said. She grinned now too, and met Rasina's merry look. "This is the happiest coincidence of the war."
"Isn't it, though?" Rasina said.
Kirana bent over the bed. It was the same woman, aged ten years from the one Kirana had fused with her mirror on the other side, but easily recognizable.
"Nava Sona," Kirana said. "You have no idea how pleased I am to find you here."
|
(Worldbreaker Saga 2) The Empire Ascendant
|
Kameron Hurley
|
[
"fantasy",
"LGBT",
"science fiction fantasy"
] |
[] |
Chapter 22
|
Lilia climbed the stairs up the great harbor wall, dragging her foot behind her, trying to make up the difference in speed by pulling herself hand over hand on the rail. Her breath came hard and fast, and she found herself wheezing. She had to slow down, though wave after wave of militia pushed past her, like she was just a drudge again, some spectator caught on the stairwell.
When she reached the top, it was still dark, but the moons were out, and they bathed the world in a pale white glow. All along the piers, dark, chitinous figures were pouring out of the boats.
"Parajistas!" Lilia huffed. She coughed, then: "Where's Ora Naldri?"
"Not on the wall yet!" a young parajista called from her place at the parapet.
"Do you have the barricade up?" She leaned over, trying to catch her breath. She needed to let it go. Not think about it. Just breathe.
"It's up – but I can see Para's breath around their boats. They're going to deploy something!"
Taigan was at the other end of the wall, barking at two young parajistas just roused from sleep to join the two on watch at the wall.
"We need to double that barricade, Taigan!" Lilia called.
"They're too raw to act quickly," Taigan said, and Lilia recognized a Saiduan curse.
Lilia limped down the opposite side of the wall to see how many people they had on it. Forty militia, crowded up to the front of the battlements with their bows.
"Stand three paces from the wall!" Lilia said. Her chest hurt, but she had a thread of breath again. The parajistas were getting lost in the muddle of bodies. "Let the parajistas get line of sight!" She spoke as loud as she could, but to these people, she was just a little shouting person. She was no one of consequence.
"Mohrai!" she called. She continued down the wall, breathing deeply, until she found Mohrai, shouting orders for the militia to prepare the first volley.
"Give the parajistas line of sight," Lilia said. "They can't attack what they can't see. Three paces from the wall."
Mohrai frowned. Turned back to the militia, shouted, "Three steps back and hold!"
The line of militia obeyed, as if Mohrai wielded her own bit of magic. Lilia paused a moment more to rally her ragged breath, then called: "Parajistas!" and she started back down the line of the wall again, shouting, "Make sure that barrier ends at the top of the wall! Top of the wall! Make sure this volley can get through! Mohrai is sending a volley!"
Her throat was already hoarse. Though strategy on paper was all very well, limping and shouting along the wall was not the best place for her. She needed her mahuan powder. If not now, then very soon.
One of the parajistas broke away. She was a young woman, a few years older than Lilia, and though Lilia could not see the blue waves of power she manipulated, she recognized the slack face, the lack of concentration. The woman stepped away from the parapet, trembling.
Lilia yelled, "Step up!" right at her face, though Lilia was a head shorter.
The parajista cringed. "There are too many of them," she said. She bolted.
Lilia staggered after her, and nearly collided with a member of the militia. A spit and hiss came from the harbor, and a blister of red breath penetrated their defenses. Lilia fell back, but the tangle of mist collided with the militia member and the three behind her. Their clothes smoked and flamed. Their skin blistered. Screams.
The line of parajistas wavered. Lilia yelled at them again to hold. She skirted past the dying militia and forged after the parajista who had fled the ranks. The woman reached the stairs and plunged down them, far too fast for Lilia to follow.
Lilia crumpled by the entrance to the stairs, gasping like a dying fish. She saw another wave of red mesh slip through their shoddy defenses, but did not have the breath to even warn them. The red wave engulfed two parajistas. They flailed and vomited, their skin sloughing off as if soaked in acid.
Naldri came up the steps behind Lilia, out of breath. He gaped, staring at the bodies, and Lilia, and the quavering line of parajistas. He yelled below, calling for a doctor, and headed out to the line of parajistas, shouting at them to hold their ground.
"There's a tide!" one of the parajistas yelled. "Plant matter of some kind, crawling up the coast!"
A half dozen militia crowded forward at the parapet.
Lilia watched them as if from a great height, listening to the rasping of her own breath.
Then there were two doctors on the wall, an apprentice snapping her fingers at Lilia, Lilia mouthing "mahuan," and then Gian was there, and there was more shouting, and another red sliver darting through the parajista's barrier, setting an entire line of militia on fire.
Gian argued with the apprentice. Pulled out the mahuan from her pocket. How did she think to carry it everywhere? She tipped it into the apprentice's water bag, shook it, and poured it into Lilia's mouth.
Lilia was so starved of air that stopping to drink felt like drowning. She coughed and sputtered. Naldri came up behind her, calling for the parajistas, but it was all a jumble. Now they had Naldri and Mohrai, at the far end, yelling at them. Disparate orders. Fear. The lines were falling, one by one.
The apprentice ran off to tend the next felled parajista, or militia. Two dozen bodies littered the parapet.
Gian kept Lilia drinking until she spit it into her lap and pushed her away. Lilia tried to get up, stumbled, fell into Gian, and Gian held her up. She smelled of sex and lavender. Lilia clung to her a moment longer.
Her breath came better now, enough to find her feet, but she was delicate, she knew. "Go below," Lilia said.
"We should both go," Gian said. "There's nothing you can do here. This is for Mohrai and Ora Naldri."
A cry came from further down the wall. Lilia saw a snarl of red mist engulf another parajista.
"Go below," Lilia said. She pulled her hands away. "Now, Gian."
Gian's expression was pained, but she went, looking behind her twice, three times, before she disappeared down the stairwell.
Lilia saw the remaining parajistas, trembling and sweating, their concentration breaking. It was too much – for her and them – to watch this horror.
She limped across the parapet, dragging her bad leg. She sucked at Oma's breath, pulled it fast and deep. In that glorious, blinding moment she could take a real, full breath of air. Her lungs opened, like she was perfect and powerful. And in that giddy first blush of total power she wanted to burn the whole world down, just because she could.
Below them, the red algae tide deployed twenty minutes earlier had reached the hem of the gate. Red flesh bloomed up the outside of the gates.
The parajistas were stepping back, making more sounds of distress. Dhai did not have the stomachs for fighting. Taigan had told her that again and again, and she hadn't listened.
"Burn it out!" she yelled. But they had no sinajistas on the wall yet to burn the algae tide. They had only her – raw and untrained.
Lilia let loose the burning breath of Oma. She drew deep and pushed the breath from her body out onto the gate, tangling it into intricate flaming trefoils with long tails. The massive clouds of mist met the red algae and burst into roaring flame. Just as she let go of Oma, she saw the answering tide of omajistas on the other side.
A solid wall of red mist formed ahead of the ships and moved toward the gates at an astonishing speed.
"Parajistas! Wall!" Naldri ran down the lines of parajistas again, rallying them.
Lilia had no idea what was contained in that red wall launched by the Tai Mora, and would not know until it burst upon them. Fire, choking smoke, pestilence, or something else? She didn't know everything Oma could do. She had no idea how to counter it.
What if she could build anything she imagined? She brought up her fist, and watched a ball of red mist curl up and away from her skin. She was brimming with Oma, soaked in it like bread left in water.
She could not see if her parajistas had succeeded in forming a wall. She could not see its chinks, its holes, its weaknesses.
"Is it up?" she called to Naldri. He wrung his hands. She realized that no matter how well she planned, the best strategy in the world was nothing if she had no people on the ground who knew how to carry it out. They had not trusted her.
The wall of red was just a hundred paces away.
Lilia spread her arms and opened her mouth and gasped as the star filled her lungs and suffused her skin. Push it out, push it out… push it out… She expelled the breath from her lungs, forcing it out through her body, like vomiting some great formless monster. She had no litany for what she wanted, only will.
Turn it away. Push it back.
The power left her and roiled out across the parapet. She took a breath, but instead of air, drew Oma. She choked.
"Lilia!"
Oma's breath entangled her. She saw great streamers roiling into her body, taking form only as it touched her bare skin. She tried to scream. But there was nothing. She fell.
Taigan was running toward her. "Fool!" Taigan yelled.
Her vision swam.
The world exploded.
Taigan saw what was going to happen the moment Lilia stepped out onto the parapet, gasping like a drowning swimmer. A massive bubble of misty red breath suffused Lilia's form. It whirled madly around her, licking and twisting like some hungry ghost.
"Release it!" Taigan yelled. She bolted forward—
–and saw the wave of Oma's breath hurling toward them from the sea.
She had to choose – cut Lilia off from her source, or save every person on the wall, including herself, from the Tai Mora assault.
It was an easy decision. Taigan had been making it her entire life.
Taigan called the Song of Davaar, and drew deep and fiercely, so much so quickly that the ends of her fingers ached. She twisted her strings into an intricate netted trap and pushed the woven snare of Oma's breath over the parapet. Released it.
Taigan ran toward Lilia, muttering the song that would cut her from Oma's grip. Arrogant, foolish, mad – all that and—
–a rush of hot air took her off her feet. She heard a heavy whumping, as if a forest of trees fell in unison. The air shuddered and contracted.
Taigan spun through air heavy as spoilt milk. She pulled Oma to break her fall. Oma eluded her. How could one trust a god so impermanent, so intemperate?
Taigan hit the parapet hard. Her left shoulder bore the brunt of her fall. The bone snapped in two and thrust up through the flesh of her arm, opening her cheek. Her fingers crunched.
She hissed. Heard another great wallop as the tangled palisade defense she had built collided with the offense the Tai Mora had thrown. The air juddered. The whole gate trembled. She bit through her pain and pushed herself over. She saw a great snarled light just over the parapet – her concoction warring with theirs.
Her fingers were unresponsive. As she tried to stand, she felt a sharp pain in her back, and crumpled again. She had broken something vital.
She reached for Oma and caught a breath. She began to reknit herself. Flesh hissed. Burned. She pieced her spine back together first, then pushed up again and limped toward Lilia while spinning the intricate whorls of Oma's breath to yank back and reknit her bones and flesh.
Lilia lay at the center of a massive charred ruin. The explosion had taken off the rear half of the parapet and half the parajistas on the wall. The edges of the splintered wood were still smoking.
Taigan found Lilia blistered, her clothes blackened tatters, most of her hair gone.
She edged closer, rubbing at her own burning arm as the bone restored itself.
"Lilia?"
No response.
Taigan knew what she would find, but tried anyway.
She pulled on Oma, and began to compose a song for a constricting mist that would kill the girl.
The ward on her back did not burn. Nothing compelled Taigan not to kill this girl.
There was nothing to say Lilia was uncommon at all.
Taigan dropped her hold on Oma. Sighed. She hoped Lilia was dead, or perhaps would die. It wasn't too late for that.
A boom behind her shattered her reverie. She ducked. The battling songs that bound Oma's breath had burst apart, their fight exhausted. Taigan saw the blooming mist of another Tai Mora attack engulfing the skies over the boats.
She gazed once more at Lilia.
Broken little girl, worse than nothing, now. Worse than what she had been even when Taigan found her. Because when Taigan first found Lilia, there was still the potential she could be powerful.
Now she was a burn out. She would never draw on Oma again.
Taigan stepped away.
"Sanisi?" the leader of the parajistas called to her. He limped over, clutching at a wound from a fragment of broken wood. "Where are you going? What's happened to Lilia?"
Taigan shrugged. "That's none of my concern." In truth, Taigan was going down to find a doctor, though she could hardly admit that even to herself.
Then her knees buckled. She cried out, and fell.
A searing pain set her spine on fire. She arched her back. The pain was worse than falling, worse than knitting herself together again.
Maralah's ward.
Maralah calling her home.
The pain receded, but only just. The compulsion held. The ward only burned softly now, like a fingertip pressed to a hot teacup. Taigan shuffled to her feet. Sweat poured down her face. She should have gone a long time ago, yes. These people were foolish. This battle was lost long before it started. Now she had no omajistas at all, nothing to show for over a year of hacking across this blighted place.
"Wait, sanisi. Who will help us?"
"I suspect you'll save yourselves," Taigan said. "Or perish. It doesn't concern me."
Taigan turned away. Her spine still ached. Home, home, but what was that anymore, but a burning brand and a woman with a leash? She began the long climb down the wall.
She would miss the scullery girl.
|
(Worldbreaker Saga 2) The Empire Ascendant
|
Kameron Hurley
|
[
"fantasy",
"LGBT",
"science fiction fantasy"
] |
[] |
Chapter 23
|
Ahkio called in the clan leaders for aid the moment Hofsha left the temple. Endurance was the only way he could think of the war. Enduring a siege. Enduring an incursion. Enduring, not fighting. Not strangling his own sister with his own two hands.
Who would he be, then?
Just eight hours after Hofsha fled with her birds, Ahkio sat with Clan Leader Isailia, Tir's replacement as leader of Clan Garika. She had responded swiftly to his summons, the first of the clan leaders to make time for a meeting since he brought them together in Raona.
Ahkio was not a strong reader, but he excelled at numbers, and he could not make the numbers she brought with her work.
"Rice," Ahkio said. Isailia sat in the chair opposite him in the Kai study, hands clasped firmly in her lap.
"We have paid our tithe to the community stores in full," Isailia said. "I'm sure you know that we would help more if we could, but we are not the rice producers they are in, perhaps, Clan Adama or Alia. We have less to spare."
"Ghrasia has given me figures for the number of militia we've had to call up – a twenty percent increase from all clans. Someone must feed them."
"That's what the community stores are for."
"This is an unprecedented time–"
"Kai, each clan must look after its own borders first. I can't spare what we simply do not have. I thought I explained this fully in my letters. We cannot–"
"And I've summoned you here because though you can pen a letter, you obviously haven't been reading mine," he said, and his tone was sharper than he intended. She stiffened. He had some concern about putting her on the defensive. He worried his own fear filled his voice.
"Kai," she said, gazing at the portraits above him. "We've had at least a dozen families flee Garika for the woodlands in the last week. One of our bakers simply closed up her storefront and left with all dozen members of her family. That is not an insignificant number. We've all heard about the harbor. There is… concern about the ability of the Dhai state to combat this threat."
"There is no Dhai state," Ahkio said. "There's all of us working together, or dying together."
"We may die regardless. I've spoken to several clan leaders, and they agree it's best if we retreat into the temples."
"Which clan leaders?"
"I… some leaders."
"Who? Badu? Adama? I didn't spend a year uniting us with a single purpose just to see us break apart at the first sign of trouble."
"I'm sorry, with Ora Nasaka telling us one thing, and you another–"
Ahkio leaned forward. "And what is Nasaka telling you?"
"She says to prepare to welcome these people to Dhai as kin. But you're telling us to prepare to fight them. It's all very… confusing, Kai."
"I can tell you now that the Tai Mora emissary has been escorted from Dhai, and we have turned down their offer of a politic welcome."
"But… why? That goes against everything–"
"I sought a peaceful solution," Ahkio said. "They are not here to be peaceful, whatever Nasaka is telling the clan leaders."
"You'll pardon, Kai, but when the Kai and his religious and political advisor cannot even agree–"
"Nasaka does not speak for me. She speaks for herself. I'll be ensuring that is communicated more effectively in the future. In the meantime, we need those rice stores."
"I cannot–"
"I replaced your predecessor," Ahkio said. "I can replace you just as easily. What's your decision, Isailia?"
"Threats are hardly–"
"Promises." He stood. She shrank back, just a little, which startled him. He had never thought of himself as an imposing person. "Every word I speak now is no longer a request. It is a directive meant to ensure our survival."
"We aren't a tyranny."
"No, we're a cooperative. And you're being less than cooperative."
Isailia smoothed her tunic. "I resign my position," she said. "I am not suited for war."
"None of us are," Ahkio said. "We must make ourselves so."
"No," she said. "I reject that."
"Reject it or not, it is coming."
"Ghrasia Madah speaks well of you in the clans," she said. "Ghrasia says you won't try and make us into what we are not. But this fight… calling up more militia, murdering people at our gates… It is defensive, yes, but it will change us. I don't want to be the people our ancestors were."
"Isailia–"
"That is all," she said. She turned abruptly and hurried from the room.
Ahkio rested his hands on the desk. Somewhere in the conversation, or perhaps in her appointment, he had misstepped. She would go home and speak of this meeting, and her family would flee with all the rest.
"Kai?" A plump novice entered. She had a scrunched little face, as if she had sucked all day on a lemon. "I'm Pasinu Hasva Sorai, Ora Nasaka's new apprentice."
"Where's Elaiko?"
"She's been put on an errand, some time ago."
"Is that… so?"
"Ora Nasaka has asked that you dine with her in her rooms this evening, as she is, of course, confined to quarters. Can I relay your response?"
"How are you related to the Catori?" Ahkio asked.
Pasinu did not even stumble. "I am her near-cousin, on her third mother's side."
"Of course," Ahkio said. "Tell Nasaka I will meet her."
"Pardon, Kai, isn't it very rude not to use Ora Nasaka's title?"
"It is," Ahkio said.
"I see," Pasinu said. She pressed thumb to forehead. "I'll tell Ora Nasaka you accepted. Good day."
Ahkio mulled over this new piece of information. He had just started to get used to Elaiko. What new game was Nasaka playing? Game upon game. All information and none. What had she sent Elaiko to do? He had her confined, now he just needed legal precedent to exile her. But from where? Who had the information he needed to do that?
Assemble your allies and go to battle – with affection and politics or swords and ships – what was the difference? It occurred to him that Nasaka had been playing the Tai Mora's game for a good long while, and, though he was running to catch up, he was not going to be fast enough.
He sat alone in the Kai quarters, going over correspondence. A novice entered, popping only her head in, ducking back a little when he looked up.
"You can come in," he said.
"Farosi is in the study. He has some news about the errand you sent him on."
"Ask him in."
She ducked out, and Farosi came in. He was a lean man, beardless, with short dark hair and a perpetual squint.
"Would you like tea?"
Farosi shook his head. "I had some news about Yisaoh."
"You found her?"
"Just news of her. There are reports putting her in the woodland. The same as her two missing brothers, Rhin and Hadaoh, their wife Meyna, and the child. You should know, Kai, that Ora Nasaka had people looking for Yisaoh as well."
"I could have guessed as much," Ahkio said. "The woodland is bigger than Dhai. Do you have any idea where?"
"I've sent two of my people out there to scout," he said. "Ora Naldri was kind enough to lend us a parajista, before he went to the harbor."
"You didn't tell Ora Naldri who you were looking for?"
"No. Only the two militia know. No disrespect meant, Kai, but I don't trust Oras. Not after all the blood that's been spilled here. She'll know you intend to meet her personally, at a time and place of her choosing," he said. "But Kai, with the blood between you–"
"I need to get to her before someone else does," he said. "She may not trust that, but if she waits long enough, she'll find out the truth of it. Anything else?"
"That's all, Kai."
Ahkio stifled his annoyance. The man could have sent that in a letter. "Thank you."
It wasn't until Farosi closed the door that Ahkio realized he might have been lingering in the hopes of sitting down to dinner with him. But Ahkio was too exhausted for social niceties. He hardly understood what they looked like anymore.
Ahkio lay in bed, wide awake, while Liaro snored. He imagined the harbor on fire, and Tai Mora flooding up the coast. Twelve hours ago, he had sent word to Para's temple to send every parajista they had to the wall, and started the Kuallina militia marching there. But they had had no word back from either, and nothing from the harbor. Every time he thought he could remove Nasaka from the temple, there was some new crisis. He was starting to suspect they were her doing.
Sitting in the dark, he found that he missed Ghrasia. Sina take him, he still missed Meyna. Liaro's snoring intensified. He babbled something in his sleep. Ahkio nudged him with his foot.
"Sina take you," Liaro muttered, and shifted positions, pulling the comforter with him.
Ahkio lay exposed in the cool air, staring out the big windows at the plateau and sweeping woodland beyond, all of it lit by the pearly white glow of the triple moons. It was mesmerizing to sit up and watch them move across the sky.
"Nasaka has done enough terrible things that someone must be willing to speak up about it," Ahkio said.
Liaro snuffled. "Keeps people up at night. Exile her for it myself."
"Should we–"
"I'm asleep."
"What should we do about–"
"Sleep," Liaro said.
Ahkio got out of bed and began to dress. He knew who had the information he wanted. She had walked out on him because of it. "I need to run an errand."
Liaro mumbled an acknowledgement. Ahkio walked two flights down to the guest rooms and opened Masura's door.
"Elder Ora Masura?" he said. "It's Ahkio. Are you awake?"
"Hm?"
"Ahkio. I'm sorry it's late. I have a question."
"Come in, come in," Masura said.
The room was dim, so Ahkio took up the paper lantern on the bedside table and shook it. The flame flies stirred, giving off a warm light.
Masura sat up in bed, rubbing her eyes. She swung her legs over the edge of the bed, parting her robe; she was naked beneath, and her sex dangled free. She looked gaunt and terribly frail in the bad light. "Don't tell me you're having bad dreams," she said wryly.
"I want to know about the day Nasaka had her child," Ahkio said.
"That's old dead business."
"Who was the midwife?"
"Why come to me about this?"
"Because you're old enough to have known about it, and you don't care for Nasaka." And you loved my mother, he wanted to add, but did not. There were few people he'd trust enough to ask.
She sighed. "It was nearly twenty years ago. What does it matter?"
"Humor a foolish boy?"
She reached for a bottle at her bedside, uncorked it. He smelled bourbon. She poured herself a drink, took a long swallow. "She was from Nasaka's clan, of course. Woman named… Orsala? Unissa? Something. I don't know. She was well known in the clan, though, in Saiz. Try there."
"And who attended my mother, that same week?"
"Ah, well." Masura took another drink. Narrowed her eyes. "Why is this important?"
"Do you remember, or not?"
"Of course I remember. I'm not that old." He didn't protest. "Javia went to childbed early, right after Nasaka. They were both in the temple at the same time, so that Unissa… Unalina woman, she attended both. Yes, I remember that now. I remember thinking she looked quite young to have attended Nasaka's birth. Why did you want to know this?"
"I just needed a few questions answered. Thank you." He got up to leave.
Masura set her drink aside. "Ahkio, some advice."
"Of course."
"Let this lie. I suspect you know what you'll find if you dig."
"I already know who I am," he said. "Nasaka is a danger to me, and this country. She's betrayed us a hundred times. I don't know how to fight her, Masura. How does a man fight his own mother? A Dhai man? A peaceful man? How can I retain who I am while keeping this country safe?
"Ahkio, if you go after Ora Nasaka on this, trying to find some way to exile her, it will all come out. The whole country will know who birthed you. Do you understand? If you destroy Ora Nasaka, you destroy yourself."
"I don't know what else to do."
"I advise finding another route," Masura said. "Listen, Ahkio. Your mother exiled her sister Etena based on madness. The things Ora Nasaka has done in her life… are they not mad?
"They are."
"Then perhaps that is where the answer lies."
Madness. Was it that easy? It had been for Etena.
"Will you back me?" he asked. "I need you to back me, Ora Masura."
"Ahkio–"
"If she's exiled she can't hurt you."
Masura barked out a laugh. "Oh, I have heard that before. It's a lie."
"Back me for Javia," he said. "Back me on it for my mother."
Masura's face crumpled. She nodded. "Ora Nasaka will kill me."
"She won't," Ahkio said. "She won't hurt anyone again."
Ahkio pressed himself against the doorway after he closed it, trying to get his head together. He would write up the papers tomorrow and call Ghrasia's militia to exile Nasaka for betrayal and madness. He had to do it now, before the chaos started. Before the harbor was breached. Before the Tai Mora came to her, ready to pay whatever debt it was they owed her.
He was Kai. He kept telling people he was. Javia had exiled her own sister for less.
He could certainly exile his own mother for the same.
|
(Worldbreaker Saga 2) The Empire Ascendant
|
Kameron Hurley
|
[
"fantasy",
"LGBT",
"science fiction fantasy"
] |
[] |
Chapter 24
|
Lilia woke, screaming, to fire.
Figures rushed around her. She heard a great rumbling in the distance, and tried to move her fingers. Her skin burned. Lilia rolled over and scratched her way forward. Her hands were blistered, covered in char. From the burned gate? Oras and militia ran madly around the parapet. Shrieking. A booming crash.
The gates shuddered. Lilia pulled herself up onto the edge of the parapet, and peered over. The Tai Mora ships had docked at the harbor, buoyed by the high tide. Hundreds of figures in chitinous blue and green armor flooded across the piers like shiny beetles, swarming the gates.
"Parajistas," Lilia huffed, but it hurt to breathe. She turned away and saw Naldri dead twenty feet up the walkway. A score of other bodies lay tangled across the top of the wall. The line of parajistas was long broken. Someone on the other side was shouting – Mohrai's voice, calling up the militia.
"Get off the wall!"
This came from someone further away, a woman dressed in the blue tunic and trousers of an Ora.
Lilia stared at the shimmering horde of invaders, and raised her fist. She drew a breath, and called on Oma.
Nothing happened.
She started coughing. Dropped her arm. She hacked and hacked, like hocking up some piece of her lung.
"Off the wall!" The Ora came toward her. "Are you hurt? I will carry you, if you permit it."
Lilia's vision swam. She did not recognize the Ora. "Where's Taigan?" she asked.
"We're retreating," the Ora said. "You're the last on the wall. I thought you were dead. May I take your arm?"
"Yes, all right."
The Ora looped a strong arm around her and hauled her down the steps just as a bubbling tide came over the lip of the parapet. Lilia glanced back and saw a great red algae swarm breach the wall.
The retreat from the harbor was a mad one, full of rushing bodies, shrieking, tears, sobs. Lilia navigated it all as though in some dream. She was ushered onto a cart with other injured. She fell back into a pile with the bloody, the bleeding, the maimed, and the newly dead.
She asked after Taigan, and Gian, but no one knew who she was speaking about. They had abandoned her up there on the wall. The betrayal hurt so badly she thought she might burst. She had lost Oma, and the worst had happened – her country invaded, her companions in retreat. Taigan had warned her about burning out. She tried to draw Oma again, and failed.
The other Dhai hushed her like she was some child. They did not know her. Lilia could get no answer about where they were going.
Her strength finally gave out. She collapsed in the back of the cart. From the rocking belly of the cart she watched the harbor gates burst open. A steely army of hundreds poured into the Asona Clan square and surrounding warehouses and shops. The square went up in moments, burning uncontrollably. In a quarter hour, the surrounding forest and grassland were on fire as well, sending choking clouds of smoke into the air.
Thick bands of smoke pushed forward ahead of the fire, low against the ground, as if some parajista manipulated their path. The smoke was a living thing, hot and cloying. Lilia saw the roiling blackness pursuing them, and knew she would not survive it. Her lungs still ached. Her skin was hot and painful. She tried to draw on Oma again, desperate. Burned out. It sounded final. Like death.
Cries came from the people around her – large family groups, traders; lost, screaming children picked up by strangers, their faces smeared in soot from the explosion at the gates. My explosion, Lilia thought. She closed her eyes, and the burning power of Oma filled her again.
She reached…
Nothing.
Lilia retched over the side of the cart.
Smoke rolled over a nearby creek. The smoke did not follow the curvature of the ground. There was clear air above the creek bed. As the smoke rose, a parajista barrier above it kept it from escaping.
The smoke chased them another mile. When Lilia could reach out her hand and touch it, she rolled out of the cart, and into the huffing legion of refugees. She could not raise her breath to shout, to urge them to keep low, but she tried anyway, calling until the smoke clogged her nostrils and she had to press her face to the ground to breathe.
She held the ground tight. People ran past her and over her, hacking and coughing. Lilia crawled toward the streambed, wheezing. Someone tripped over her, a small girl. Lilia grabbed her ankle, hissed, "Stay low. Stay against the ground."
The little girl trembled like ashy paper. She pressed herself against Lilia. She was only six or seven, far from the age of consent, so Lilia took her by the arm without asking, and told her to come along.
"My mothers–"
"They'll find you," Lilia lied, because in truth they ran through a death trap, like rats smoked out by poison.
Lilia tumbled into the streambed. She submerged her scorched, aching body. She lay her face in the mud and remained still. Beside her, the girl did the same, taking great gasping breaths of clean air while the black smoke moved over them like a shroud.
As Lilia watched the back of the girl's head, she was reminded of Nirata's granddaughter, Esau. Sliced in two when the portal between Dorinah and Dhai closed. A seared side of meat. Half a person. A needless death.
Lilia smoothed the girl's hair and held her tight, like calming a terrified rabbit. The girl's heart pounded harder than her own.
"What's your name?" Lilia asked.
"Tasia."
"We'll wait until the smoke is gone, then we'll follow after the others."
"But won't the Dorinahs come?"
Dorinah. Is that what everyone thought they were?
Tasia said, "There are so many of them. Why do they hate us?"
"I don't know," Lilia said, because though something more complex than hate fueled this invasion, she could not imagine killing something she did not hate – like those Dorinah legionnaires.
But the image of Esau flashed in front of her again; a little girl killed so one selfish, desperate person could get out of a terrible situation.
Was Lilia any better than the Tai Mora, in that moment?
She lay still in the creek bed. Tears rolled down her cheeks. The smoke moved past them. The air cleared.
Tasia poked her head up.
"Stay down," Lilia said. She shifted painfully up the edge of the creek bed and peeked over. Dozens of bodies littered the grassy plain. The fire still burned north of them – Asona on fire, and the woods blazing – but it would be some time before it caught up to them.
She gestured for Tasia to come up. Together they limped across the trampled grass. Lilia moved among the bodies, collecting food and a water sling, searching for other useful items. She found a large stone, and slipped it in her pocket.
"There are so many of them," Tasia said.
Lilia wasn't sure if she meant the bodies, or the Tai Mora.
"How will we fight them?" Tasia said, and there was a note of fear in the voice, a note that told Lilia the girl was about to start shrieking. Shrieking would put them both in danger. It was likely the Tai Mora would send scouts ahead of the main force. She would have.
"We must be clever," Lilia said. She came up short. There was a figure lying on the ground near the trees on the other side of the road, crawling on all fours, making terrible hacking sounds. It wore red armor shiny as any beetle's carapace.
"Stay here," Lilia told Tasia, and she crept toward the figure. She pulled the stone from her pocket and brandished it in her good hand.
The figure raised its head. The face was mostly covered in the flat plains of the helm. She saw two eyes, a hint of a chin. But it was not only the smoke that felled them. There was a crack in the helm at the back. She recognized the sap and residual peridium of a capsillium plant, all sticky and bubbling around a hole in the back of the helm. They must have stumbled into a mating plant, and gotten stuck with its pollinator.
Lilia raised the rock and smashed it into the open wound. The figure jerked. She hit it again, in the same place, and again, until blood spattered her arm and the helm was cracked even further. The armor wasn't metal, but chitin. Once cracked, it gave way easily around the wound.
She sat for a long moment over the prone body, trying to catch her breath. Then she gently pulled off the helmet. The face was twisted. Lilia regarded the helmet, remembering her ruse with Zezili on the other world.
"We need to bring this armor with us," Lilia said. "Can you help me take it off?"
"Is it dead?"
"Yes. Don't be afraid. If we take this armor we can fool them if they get too close. I can pretend I'm one of them."
"It's too big for you."
It sounded like an accusation. Lilia found herself irrationally angry. To survive an attack on the harbor, to botch it so badly, to lose her power, to crawl into a creek bed and escape certain death, and here was this child, seeing right through her, all her big and important ideas, fanned by Taigan's great expectations for her. Taigan, who had abandoned her on the wall. And where was Gian? When the end came, they all ran. They cared for her only so long as she was useful, one no better than the other. And this little girl knew. Knew the task Lilia had been given was far beyond her capabilities. She had no power now. Maybe she never had.
Lilia started to cry. She griped the helmet and sobbed, a few choking huffs. It lasted half a minute, maybe more. Then she knelt next to the dead scout and started pulling off the armor, piece by awkward piece.
"Cleverness," she said aloud. "Not with swords."
Clever, like the Seekers had been, hiding from their Empress and the Tai Mora in plain sight.
Were the Seekers still bound to her? Taigan had created the ward, and she had bound it with her own hand. Lilia went very still, searching for some tenuous connection to the five Seekers. She found them fluttering at the edges of her consciousness, in the same place she reached for and did not find Oma; some bundled reserve of power tethering her to them. She closed her eyes and pulled at the lines of power. She knew no litany to draw them to her. But a ward, once set, could only be undone when the one who made it released it, or some very skilled jista understood the maker well enough to figure out how to untangle it.
"Mother."
Lilia opened her eyes. Tasia had hold of her charred tunic. "Mother" was often used as a polite term for an older woman. No one had ever called Lilia that before. She was just a girl, wasn't she? But in this little girl's eyes, she saw that those days were long past, her childhood wants and desires, so simple, really, for a mother and a home, buried here on the killing field.
"We're going to Kuallina, child," Lilia said. "But we must be quiet and keep to the woods. You understand?"
"My parents are going to Kuallina."
"There, see? We'll find them together."
But as they started off, Lilia found she could barely walk more than a hundred paces before she was out of breath and exhausted. She had to dump the idea of hiding in the armor. As the girl pointed out, Lilia was too small, and weak. They rested often, following the curve of the creek.
"Look out for a little plant here in the creek bed," Lilia said. "Its roots are round and pop above the surface. The stems are mostly brown right now, but they grow long and tall as my arm."
Putting Tasia on the hunt was a good idea. It kept her busy, even when Lilia was wheezing along the creek bed. It was an hour before Tasia clapped her hands and announced she'd found the plant – raw mahuan.
Lilia dug into the cold mud and pulled out the bulbous yellow roots. She washed them, broke them apart, and chewed them, careful not to swallow.
"I'm hungry," Tasia said.
"It's not food," Lilia said. "It's medicine."
Raw mahuan was dangerous, but so was dying here, asphyxiated like a beached sea creature. She broke out sticky rice and dried yams from the stores she'd taken from the dead, and sat silently chewing the mahuan root while Tasia ate and poked at things in the creek.
The army caught up to them that night.
Lilia camped up in the welcoming arms of a bonsa tree, its great bows so broad and thick that she could wedge herself into them without fearing a fall. Even so, her newfound fear of heights prevented her from going up more than six paces. It was enough. Tasia fell asleep almost immediately, bunched up close to Lilia in the leafy canopy. Lilia envied her. She lay awake watching the first wave of the army coming up the road, hacking and burning vegetation as they went to clear the way. The landscape of Dhai itself was a good defense. If people had any sense they would flee to the edges of things instead of bunching up in the clan squares. But they would want to be together, wouldn't they? Together until the end.
The potent mahuan root opened her lungs. She took her first full breath in a day sometime in the darkest part of the night, her brain buzzing, hands trembling. Her body felt very light. She gazed at the stars through the breaks in the trees, and pretended to be a bird, flying faster and faster, until her vision swam and her head ached and she vomited bile and chewed more mahuan root.
Tasia woke her at the blushing blue of Para's dawn. "There are women down there," Tasia said.
Lilia peered through the branches and saw four figures in hooded coats picking among the snarling brambles of floxflass and morvern's drake.
Lilia reached for her ward again, thumbing at the snarls of power still hidden there.
The figure at the front raised its head, then the other three. One actually fell to their knees, keening, and that drew Lilia up short.
She stopped poking at the ward.
Tulana pulled back her hood and peered up at her. There was a twist to her mouth that Lilia thought was anger, but when she spoke, the strained tone was not anger, but pain.
"Please desist that meddling," Tulana said. "I'd hoped you were dead."
Lilia palmed a bit of mahuan root from the bag at her side, and started chewing. Took a long, full breath.
"Where are the others?"
"Dead," Tulana said. Flat tone.
"The Tai Mora?"
"You," Tulana said. "Taigan didn't teach you how to use that foul shit you seared into us, and this is what it gets you."
"That wasn't my intention."
"Well, someone was going to murder us eventually," Tulana said. "You. The Tai Mora. The Empress." She laughed hollowly. She seemed to relax, now, though, as she came up under Lilia's roost.
"I need to get down," Lilia said. Her voice sounded tremulous, even to her. She said it again, more strongly, "Help me down."
"Use your little powers," Tulana said.
"I can order you."
"You are loathsome."
"How many Dhai have you killed, Tulana? You and your Seekers?"
"You've got more blood on your hands than I, girl."
"You're wrong." Lilia felt the mahuan working on her aching, blistered body. She could barely feel any pain anymore, and breathing was like a dream, almost as lovely as when she could draw on Oma.
Tasia clung to her, trembling again. "Come and get the child," Lilia said, and Tulana reluctantly raised her arms.
Tasia gave Lilia a furtive look, but obeyed, far more trusting than Tulana. What would this little girl think, if she knew what Lilia was?
Lilia went down next. She asked for no help, and none moved to help her. She fell, stumbled to her hands and knees, and shuffled to her feet with great difficulty.
"Where did you come from?" Lilia asked.
"The Dhai from the clans, all the ones stretching from here to the harbor, are meeting at a large stronghold inland. Kuallina? That's where we were headed before… you called."
Lilia glanced at the faces of the remaining Seekers: mean-faced Voralyn with the streak of gray hair in the black; plump Amelia; and Laralyn, the youngest. They were missing the man, Sokai, the lean, wolfish one who went everywhere with Tulana, the one Lilia once saw her singing to.
She glanced back at Tulana. "I am sorry, again."
"There is no real regret," Tulana said, "and no forgiveness to be had, between master and slave."
"Did you tell your dajians that?"
"To make someone free into a slave is far worse than–"
"We bleed the same," Lilia said. "I gave you a choice, and you made it." Tasia clung to her frayed tunic. "Now which of you is a healer? Voralyn?" Lilia held out her blistered hands. Patches of her skin were weeping fluid. "Attend this, and then we must get back around the army to Kuallina."
"You intend to make a stand there?" Tulana said. Sarcastic, almost sneering. "That did not turn out well last time."
"We were unprepared. I have something else in mind." Lilia spit the wad of mahuan pulp, and snapped off another bit.
"Some fool plan," Tulana said. "You nearly killed us all last time."
"The plan I had would have worked," Lilia said, too sharply. "We never got a chance to use it. Something went wrong at the harbor. We should have had more time. But we didn't. So you can follow me, or die here. The same as in Dorinah." She almost plucked at the wards again. Almost. The worn, exhausted look on Voralyn's face reminded her too much of Kalinda Lasa. When had she become a monster? She pressed her hand to Tasia's head.
Esau.
It had started with Esau, the little girl lost in the seams between things.
Now it was too late. There was no turning back. Someone had to fight the monsters.
Who better than a monster?
|
(Worldbreaker Saga 2) The Empire Ascendant
|
Kameron Hurley
|
[
"fantasy",
"LGBT",
"science fiction fantasy"
] |
[] |
Chapter 25
|
Ahkio sat with Nasaka in the Kai study. Or, rather, he stood, fingers pressed to the table, voice raised about lines of supply to the harbor, and Nasaka sat across from him, one leg bent over the other, expression unreadable.
It was his new assistant, one of his former students from Osono, Rimey, who ran in with the news, ran all the way across the Assembly Chamber, so Ahkio had time to stop his yelling before she blurted, "The harbor has fallen."
Nasaka did not even turn.
"Did Mohrai send a report?" Ahkio asked.
"Ora Hasina did," she said. "They're uncertain of casualties. When she sent word, they were fleeing."
"Where?" Ahkio asked.
"Kuallina," Nasaka said.
Ahkio raised his brows.
"It's the next logical hold out," she said. "The only other places with any defense. The temples are too small to hold the kinds of populations that must be evacuated, and Liona–"
"Enough," Ahkio said. "You have the letter?"
Rimey handed it over.
It was brief, maddeningly short on details:
Lines broke. Harbor walls breached. Retreating to Kuallina.
"Oma's breath," Ahkio said.
"We'll need to divert supplies to Kuallina," Nasaka said.
"Do it," he said. When she did not move, he raised his voice. "Go, Nasaka."
She rose slowly. "Of course, Kai." She sauntered out.
Rimey waited in the door, staring at him.
"What?" he said.
"There are other bad rumors. The drudges are saying–"
"I don't need rumors, Rimey. I need facts." She was younger than Caisa, smart, but moving her from Osono to Oma's Temple had proved a great adjustment for her. She wandered around with wide eyes and jumped at loud words.
"Kuallina is not ready for them. They can't hold that many refugees. They sent a message to Ora Una."
"She didn't see fit to tell me this?"
"I think she told Ora Nasaka."
"Of course she did." He wiped at his face. "All right. We're running out of time. Get me Liaro. We need to make another trip to the basements. I also need Ora Soruza. We'll need every Ora we have at Kuallina."
"But you said–"
"What did I say?" Too sharply, he knew, but he was tired.
"I'll get Liaro."
"And Ora Soruza. Have them meet me in the Sanctuary."
Ahkio put away his papers. Wasted time, all of it. He felt like that's all Nasaka wanted to do – waste his time. With so few details on the harbor, he craved a first-hand account. Information was scattered here, and too much of it filtered through Nasaka.
Liaro came up just as he was changing his clothes in the adjacent Kai quarters.
"You heard about the harbor?" Liaro asked.
"I did. Do you know any other details?"
"Only that it fell. A runner just came in by lift from Kuallina with someone who was there."
"Mohrai?"
"No, I don't think so."
"Why didn't Rimey tell me that?"
"It just happened. As I was coming up I saw them in the Lift chamber and asked."
They plunged downstairs and intercepted the two people who had arrived by Lift, a member of the Kuallina militia who looked vaguely familiar and a soot-stained young woman with a badly burned arm wrapped in linen.
"This is the Kai," the militia member said.
"What's happened?" he asked, and felt a fool for it, because she was hurt and he had no manners.
"They brought down the harbor."
"The Tai Mora?"
"Yes. I'm the Catori's cousin, Alhina. I was on the wall when the lines broke."
"Did you provoke an attack?"
"No, we were still preparing our offensive."
"Offensive?"
"It's a long story."
"Where is everyone? Mohrai? What about the scullery girl, Lilia? Did she betray us? Was she theirs?"
"I'm sorry, Kai, I don't know very much. Mohrai is in Kuallina. We were some of the first to get there. The scullery girl, she… she died on the wall. It was a bloody mess, Kai. It was… it was awful. I never thought… I never imagined…"
"Have you heard anything of Liona?" he asked the militia member. "Can we divert some of the refugees there?"
"When we left there were reports coming in. Rumors, mostly. There's strife in Dorinah. Armies on the move. I'm sure someone will send a proper missive when they know more."
A proper missive, straight to Nasaka.
"Thank you both. Please, go down to the infirmary. They'll see to that arm. You can get something to eat in the kitchens."
Ahkio motioned Liaro back to the scullery stair to avoid accompanying them down. He could move faster.
"What are you planning?" Liaro asked.
"I need to get back down to the basements." He had gained back a day, once. Could he stop the invasion at the harbor? Warn them? He could get himself onto the wall and find a way…
"Ahkio, let's not get on this again. You said she told you she couldn't help you–"
"This is a special situation."
"I know you're desperate now, because you're relying on seers and mystics and hallucinations."
Ahkio rounded on him. "Stop with that. Do you have anything better to add? A great plan? A way to stop a massive Tai Mora army from crushing us? Because that's what's likely to happen. Everyone told me I couldn't stop this, and yes, they're right. With no one behind me, and Nasaka working against me, with us grabbing at each other's throats and my own people turning against me, they're right, we can't. But I'm not going to roll over and die here, Liaro. So will you help me, or stand here and make jokes?"
Liaro said nothing. The expression on his face was so hurt that Ahkio had to turn away. He continued down the stairs.
He met Ora Soruza in the Sanctuary – a tall, plump person with cropped curly hair and a squint. Ahkio told Soruza bluntly that they needed every parajista in the temple at Kuallina.
"Have you contacted Ora Naldri?" Soruza asked. "There are plenty of parajistas at Para's Temple. We have only–"
"Ora Naldri is dead," Ahkio said. "The harbor has fallen. I have no idea how many of those parajistas are still alive. If Kuallina is going to hold, it needs parajistas."
"Kai, we have only fifty full parajistas here. I'd prefer we kept at least half here, in case–"
"If the army gets to the temples, we're lost," Ahkio said. "Keep a dozen here, if that makes you feel better, but I can tell you now – they've broken the harbor. If Kuallina and Liona go, we're finished."
"We should really call the Ora council," Soruza said. "A full council meeting–"
"You mean you want to ask Nasaka," Ahkio said. "You should know that Nasaka is being stripped of her position, and won't be in this country much longer. I suggest you consider again what will happen if Kuallina falls, and send those Oras, or I will do it myself."
"Kai, strategy is not… perhaps if Ghrasia–"
"Ghrasia is not here," Ahkio said. "It's possible we lost a good many people at the harbor. Do you understand our position yet?"
Soruza nodded curtly. "I am beginning to appreciate it."
"Please, Soruza," he said. "That army will murder them all in Kuallina without reinforcements from us."
"All right," Soruza said.
"Thank you." Ahkio left the Sanctuary and went to Una's office. She was gone, but her assistant was there. He demanded the keys to the basements, which the boy handed over with wide eyes.
Liaro followed him silently down the steps to the warm bathing room, then along the broad corridor running to the second basement entrance. Down and down, like disappearing into the belly of the world.
As he stepped up to the door of the sixth basement, Liaro said, softly, "Please don't do this again."
Ahkio glanced back at him. Liaro's expression was pained, almost sick. "What's wrong?"
"You don't know how you looked when you touched that stone," Liaro said. "You were dead. Like a stone corpse. Don't do it again, please. What if you don't come back this time?"
"Then Nasaka can burn the temples to the ground," Ahkio said. "I can stop the harbor."
"We can go away," Liaro said.
"What?"
"Evacuate the temples. We can go to Tordin or Aaldia or–"
"As refugees?" Ahkio said. "Have you seen how countries treat refugees? You've seen what we are in Dorinah. I won't see us be slaves again."
"If this is a war that can't be won–"
"I have to exhaust every possibility," Ahkio said. "Whatever this temple was made to do can turn these people back. We must understand it."
"You said it was broken."
"You can go back up, Liaro, but I need to put this to rest."
Ahkio opened the door.
On the other side, Nasaka and Una waited for him, sitting on one of the great roots, sharing the light of a flame fly lantern.
An icy knot of fear bloomed in Ahkio's gut. He did not cross the threshold.
"I've been very curious about what you've been up to down here," Nasaka said. "Ora Una suggested that I simply ask you directly. What do you think of that, Ahkio? Some direct conversation."
"We have nothing to speak about. Get out of here."
"The temple belongs to the Dhai," Nasaka said. "You're merely the Kai. And, as we have learned this last decade, the place of a Kai is very precarious."
"Are you threatening me now?"
"Not at all. I'm inviting you to show me to the center of this level, and demonstrate exactly what that stone does. You know, don't you? You've activated it."
"Do you have any idea what's happened in the harbor?"
"Yes," Nasaka said. "I predicted it. At every turn, I've tried to prevent this horror from happening, but you thwarted my advice again and again. Why? Because it came from me? Perhaps I should have put it into the lips of one you trust more."
"Get out of here before I remove you," Ahkio said. Facing her now, in the quiet of the basements, with only sour-faced Una and Liaro-who-had-fallen-on-his-own-sword, he knew he had little but words. He didn't even wear a weapon. Never had. Nasaka wore hers.
"And how do you intend to remove me?" Nasaka asked. "I'm curious to know because there's a strong rumor you do intend to do it. Do you mean to murder me in my bed?"
"No," Ahkio said. The harbor was burning. It was all ending, and she wanted to play this game? Let them speak plainly, then. "I mean to have you exiled."
"And lose what I know about what we face? No. You won't."
"We've reached a point in this conflict where having you here is dividing our country."
"What's your charge, Kai? You mean to move against me?" She laughed. "I've done nothing in violation of any law, whether in the Book or in the amended constitutions. If you want to retain some semblance of authority, you must exile me thoroughly and correctly, and you can't do that."
"I can," Ahkio said. "For madness."
"That does sound terrible indeed," Nasaka said. "What proof do you have of that?"
"I'm Kai. My word is proof, is it not?"
"Not before any clan leader."
"Was your word proof enough to exile Etena?"
Nasaka said nothing, so he barreled on. "You have played this game straight, that's true," he said. "You didn't go against many direct edicts, but you planted the seeds of ideas. You got the Kais to do what you wanted, my mother and Kirana. But Kirana only to an extent, right? Because Etena got to her first."
He was rambling now, clawing at something that might get her to unmask herself. But what did it matter, if she did that here? These witnesses were few. He found himself glancing at her sword again. Some darker part of his mind told him he was fighting for his life now that he had threatened to exile her. She would fight him to the death, for that.
Nasaka picked up the lantern. She walked right up to Ahkio, and though she stood on the steps below him, with him gazing down at her, he felt as if she were some towering specter, bathed in the eerie, flickering light of the lamps.
"You know what's so ironic?" Nasaka said. "I put you into this seat to save you, but you've done nothing but make it into a seat of thorns. And there's no reason for it, is there? Etena abdicated, yes, when she ran off into the woodlands into exile. But she is by right of birth and gift the true Kai of this temple. I wonder what will happen if she returns, and declares herself Kai again? Perhaps it will be better for you. Let us lift this responsibility from your weary shoulders."
"The harbor is burning, Nasaka."
"There are a million worlds," Nasaka said. "The harbor is burning in some, and not in others. The Tai Mora want a gateway to those worlds, one not bought with blood. They came to me a decade ago, looking for it. You've found it, haven't you, Ahkio?"
"I knew you were theirs," Ahkio said, but his voice broke, because the betrayal was so deep, even for Nasaka.
"They murdered you in front of me," Nasaka said. "Pulled me through some rip in the world and laid you out and slaughtered you like some animal. They said they would do it to all of us, eventually."
"What did they offer you?"
"Your life, and mine, and a few others. All I could save. Ten years I've worked to ensure that some sliver of our people survives this onslaught, and you have undone it all."
"I won't bargain away the entire county just to save a handful of lives. That's how we're different."
"I've seen what they'll do here, Ahkio. Now, sometimes, I wonder – are you the Ahkio I think you are, or some darker version, some imposter they sent to undo all my plans and ensure our eradication? How many worlds are there? Maybe there are many of you, pulled here just to thwart me."
She took his wrist. He fought her. Slip and pivot. He fell back into Liaro. Liaro's hands came up and held him still.
"Don't fight, Ahkio. Please," Liaro said.
Ahkio twisted out of his grip, shocked, and fell down the stairs. He landed hard and lost his breath. Nasaka grabbed Ahkio's leg and yanked him back. Ahkio kicked her with his free leg and rolled up. He took her arm and tried to use her as leverage to get to his feet. She twisted, and for a moment they danced around one another, locking and breaking one another's grips. She had taught him a great deal about self-defense after he returned from the burning of his family in Dorinah.
Nasaka punched him in the kidney. The pain was sharp. He went down. She pressed her knee into the small of his back and yanked his left arm behind him, rotating it sharply. He hissed.
"You taught me to fight," he said. "Did you ever think it would be you I was fighting?"
"Yes," Nasaka said.
Ahkio tried to catch Liaro's gaze. Liaro hung back in the doorway, face pained.
"Liaro," Ahkio said.
"It's for the best," Liaro said.
Another betrayal. Another ally turned. "You're not even one of the Tai Mora, are you?" Ahkio said, and the pain now was more than just physical. "Just another petty liar. And for what?"
"You're on a dangerous path. You said yourself the harbor is burning–"
"Liaro, please–"
"Ora Una! Help me take him to the cells," Nasaka said.
Ahkio howled.
|
(Worldbreaker Saga 2) The Empire Ascendant
|
Kameron Hurley
|
[
"fantasy",
"LGBT",
"science fiction fantasy"
] |
[] |
Chapter 26
|
The faces of Harajan were grown into every surface – from the cats' eyes hewn into either side of the broad round gates to the playful, puffed-cheeked heads of slaves that made up the doorknobs of every room in the hold – even the slave quarters. The portraits in the walls were not mounted, but living things, trained to grow and renew themselves into just this pattern by some long-dead tirajista sorcerer. It had been weeks since Driaa brought Maralah word that the pass had opened up. The weather had broken the day before, and she looked forward to sparring outside with Driaa wearing far fewer cumbersome clothes than usual. With the weather broken and Taigan on the way, she almost felt hopeful.
Maralah passed portrait after portrait on her way through the blue-glowing corridors. The bioluminescent fungi lining the ceiling and edges of the walkway were nearly bright enough to read by, but they cast the portraits in grotesque shadows. She could not shake the feeling that perhaps some sinajista had captured the souls of the men and women and ataisa bearing these faces a thousand years ago and stored them here, a treasure-trove of power held in reserve, for just a time as this.
She let her fingers tarry over the portraits as she went, but could sense nothing inside of them – no fiery, tingling essence of power. Sina was descendant, and though some mornings she woke quite certain she could feel it coming back into the world, most days her connection was just this – a tenuous flickering at the back of her mind.
The hurried footsteps ahead of her gave her pause. She expected the Tai Mora any day.
Rainaa, one of the Patron's slaves, rounded the corner, and nearly collided with her.
"Where are you off to?" Maralah asked, fearing the worst. If Rainaa had come, it meant Rajavaa was dead.
"Wraisau's boy sent me to find you," Rainaa said. "There's an army at the gates."
"Tai Mora?"
"I don't know."
Maralah pushed past her. "Where is Kovaas?"
"Western tower."
"Find Driaa and Morsaar and have them meet us there."
Maralah hurried toward the central keep and into the broad courtyard, still heaped with dirty snow. The sun was out, and she could hear dripping water. The kennel masters were exercising the animals, but there were no sanisi training in the yard. She thought that odd, but suspected many were already on the walls.
She scanned the top of the twisted ramparts. They pulsed with green and blue defenses – a misty, static barrier that could repel a fist or a blade equally. She saw two sanisi there, and counted six regular infantry. That was a few more infantry than usual, but if there was an army out there, it should have drawn gawkers. She drew the short blade at her hip, just in case.
Maralah gripped the puffed-cheeked slaves' head of the doorknob leading up into the western tower, and stepped inside.
The interior was dark. She squinted, momentarily blinded by the abrupt change from the sunny, snow-white courtyard to dim tower. The air felt heavy. She swore.
A great weight thumped into her chest.
Maralah reeled, knocking back into something solid. Her ears popped. A great force squeezed her body rigid, capturing her arms against her sides. It yanked her into the room. The door slammed behind her.
She hung suspended several feet above the floor in the tower foyer, strung so tight it hurt to breathe. She tried to focus on the shadowy figures around her.
"Kill her?"
"Wait for Morsaar."
Bloody fuck, Maralah thought. He had moved faster than she anticipated. Army at the gates, indeed. She felt like a child.
She sucked in a shallow breath. "Patron," she wheezed. "My brother?"
She didn't know why she asked. She knew this song. She had sung it herself.
"Morsaar is Patron."
Maralah squinted again, and saw the speaker was an infantry man. But the sanisi? Who was the parajista who held her? What traitorous coward had turned?
"No one is Patron until I say so," Maralah growled.
The air around her contracted. She wheezed.
Her vision finally adjusted. She saw Driaa standing to the left of the infantryman, a neutral expression on her face.
Maralah said, "This close to the end, you side with him?"
"I told you to take it while you could," Driaa said. "I did come to you first."
Maralah heard footsteps. She raised her head, straining to see if Morsaar would dare face her. But no, it was just more infantry, and two sanisi. All of them were covered in blood. Killing themselves. At least the Dhai had killed and eaten each other, and made some use of all that death. She would just be burned.
"The Patron wants her locked up," one of the men said.
Maralah felt a shiver of relief. Morsaar still wanted something from her.
"The Tai Mora," Maralah said. "Are they here?"
"Not yet," the man said, and she recognized him as a confidant of Morsaar's, "but soon enough. You think we didn't know how to get you to come running?"
"None of this matters," Maralah said.
"Shut her up," the man said.
The air constricting Maralah's chest grew heavier, tightening like a noose. She gasped. Her mouth filled with heavy air, thick as soup.
Black spots juddered across her vision.
Sina, she called. Sina, my star, my breath, where are you?
She felt a tremulous snarl of power in answer, and saw a little puff of violet mist.
Then blackness.
|
(Worldbreaker Saga 2) The Empire Ascendant
|
Kameron Hurley
|
[
"fantasy",
"LGBT",
"science fiction fantasy"
] |
[] |
Chapter 27
|
Saradyn stood inside the shadowy square as morning burned away the last of the frost, a week after returning from his sweep of the rebellious village, Mordid. He watched Rosh and her ghosts die at the noose. He waited only until her ghosts faded, and her feet had ceased to jerk. Then he turned away, pulled his hood up over his shaggy hair, and went back to the hold to inspect Natanial's hostage.
"He's been quiet," Itague said as he led Saradyn down the narrow stair into the tight corridors of the gaol. "The bitch-boy whined for water and a pot, but once he had it, got real still. Might be sick. He's skinny as a virgin."
Itague opened a broad door at the end of the corridor. Cold air and light seeped from a high barred window at the far end of the room. The cell was meant for the more important sorts of prisoners, nobility and high-ranking officers. The bed was big, set on plain wooden planking. The sheets were stained. There was a table, a chair, a handful of candles, and a low, bookless shelf. A boy lay curled on the bed, dressed all in Dorinah fashion. There were other figures in the room: a misty stir above the boy; a quivering old woman in one corner; an emaciated man hanging from a noose tied to the bars of the window.
Saradyn moved toward the figure on the bed. The ghosts turned to watch him.
The boy looked up. He was filthy, unshaven. He had knotted the matted length of his hair back from his face. He had big brown eyes, sharp cheekbones, a strong chin, but his form was that of a child. He was thinnest in the hips, broader at the shoulders, a Dorinah deformity encouraged in men through the wearing of bindings that emphasized the inverted triangle of a man's form.
Behind the boy were female ghosts, a roiling stir of them – a freckled woman with a face like a dog, a woman's dark torso, the eyes of a bitter old woman with rotten teeth, and more, mostly disjointed, merging, bickering, a gaggle of oppressive faces.
Saradyn grimaced. He would not spend long in this boy's company. His brood of ghosts was maddening. Saradyn had no idea how the boy could live with them.
The boy pushed himself back against the wall. He still wore his binding, though it was as dirty and tattered as the rest of him.
"Does he speak Tordinian?" Saradyn asked Itague.
Itague juggled the keys. He was looking at the desk. "No, just Dorinah."
Saradyn went over his limited vocabulary of Dorinah. He could speak it, after a fashion. The words tasted bad on his tongue. "Husband, Hasaria?"
"Yes," the boy said. "She's my wife, she–" He broke into a long tirade, too fast for Saradyn to catch.
Saradyn held up a hand. "Slow," he said. "Explain."
"I don't know anything! She doesn't tell me anything. You're Saradyn, aren't you? I know you, I heard you were–"
He flitted off again into nattering.
Saradyn swore, turned to Itague. "Do they teach them to talk like women, too?"
Itague shrugged his big shoulders. "Never met no Dorinah man before. This what they make of us there, I'll burn every witch from here to the sea."
"Clean him up. Get him some proper clothes. Find me the historian. I want to have him ready some news for press."
"Think he'll be useful?"
"He's worth a fortune," Saradyn said. "Dorinah women take great pride in their men. They're given as prizes. To lose him is a great disgrace. She'll pay. It will fund our efforts to unite Tordin."
"Yes sir," Itague said.
Saradyn pushed back into the foyer, and whistled for Dayns and Sloe.
The dogs followed Saradyn to the library just off the reception hall. He found a servant and asked for ale.
The historian arrived some time later, eyes downcast, nodding his too-big head and stirring his hand in the air, asking for tolerance for his truancy.
"May I sit, lord?" the historian asked.
"No, this will be short," Saradyn said. "I want you to rewrite the history of Galind."
The man's throat bobbed. "How would you like it changed, lord?"
"Bring me what's written. I'll decide from there."
"Lord, they are all rather short, written by Faytin Villiam during the time of the Thief Queen. I don't–"
"Then bring them to me. Don't presume to know my interests."
"Yes, lord."
"That is all."
"Yes, lord. Thank you, lord."
The historian crept from the room.
Saradyn had picked the man up outside a puppet show in Caratyd, where he sat with slate and chalk, writing blessings for children. He could recite a lot of epics, but Saradyn found himself increasingly dissatisfied with his ability to pen them. The histories of Saradyn's reign thus far were still the old ones written during the Thief Queen's time, which – when they spoke of him at all – ridiculed him as one of Penelodyn's lackeys, a poor guardian to the Thief Queen, and a disgrace to his home nation. They may not sing them aloud in his presence anymore, but he heard them outside every public house in the moments before he crossed their thresh holds. He understood the importance of stories. He needed to be a heroic figure.
His best astronomers told him war was coming – the harbinger of Laine's wrath, Oma, was rising. It could destroy everything he had built, or usher in a new era of ascendance, where he was lord not only of Tordin, but all of Grania. Times of great change had to be seized, not squandered. And he needed someone to shape what he had done: an epic to be sung alongside Laine's praises.
Saradyn stepped to the heavy lectern that supported his massive copy of The Book of Laine, and frowned over the tattered pages. He would need to set a scribe to recopying it.
A knock at the door startled him. "Yes," he said.
Itague entered, carrying a letter with a broken seal. "Pardon, lord–"
"Why've you broken my letter?" Saradyn said.
"It was addressed to Tanays," Itague said. "It's a… report from the north."
"Why've you brought it to me?" Saradyn said, taking the paper.
"Tanays went cold as death when he read it. Told me to give it to you."
Saradyn peeled open the letter. It was from the temporary governor he'd put in charge of Mordid. Saradyn skimmed the text, and grunted. Reading was not his strongest suit, which frustrated him. He suspected he'd read something wrong. He shoved it back at Itague.
"What's this nonsense?"
"The governor says that girl ran away, back to Mordid. The dissident girl. Rosh."
"That's impossible," Saradyn said.
Itague shrugged. "Then that governor is mad, or someone is impersonating her. Rosh is alive, he says, back to leading those rogues against us."
Saradyn felt a cold chill creep up his spine. "I watched her die."
"Then she must be a ghost," Itague said, and laughed.
Saradyn did not.
Saradyn pushed out of the main hold and across the courtyard. The night was deep. He needed to leave for that little know-nothing settlement in the morning to search for Rosh – he didn't trust anyone else, as they didn't have his talents – but not before securing a bit of help. He stepped up into the apartments above the kennels. Saw light under the door at the end of the hall. He pushed the door open.
Natanial stood naked at the center of the room, illuminated by the crackling fire. He was still tossing away his tunic. He turned to Saradyn, his handsome face licked in shadows. Saradyn had seen Natanial naked on any number of occasions, but his body was still sometimes unsettling. He had the slender, wiry torso of some young, virile man – he could have been one of Laine's blessed sons. But nestled in the dark, wiry hair between his legs was not anything Saradyn would associate with a man. Saradyn assumed Natanial had been castrated, or suffered some injury that left him without balls or most of a cock, but never asked. There were some things, among men, one did not ask.
"What can I do for you?" Natanial said. He made no effort to cover himself, but sat down in a broad chair. He hooked one leg over the edge, baring his genitals. It was the confidence Saradyn appreciated most about him – the absolute fearlessness.
"I need you to come with me and kill a girl."
"Easy enough."
"I've already killed her once."
"Well, that is something."
"If people I kill start coming back to life, I don't need that getting out." He didn't believe resurrection was the miracle at work here, but he needed to be sure. With Laine's harbinger coming back to the world, any number of strange things could happen.
Natanial guffawed, but cut it short when Saradyn did not share his mirth.
"You're serious?"
"I am."
"I'll take care of it, then. Anything else?"
"Put some clothes on," Saradyn said.
"Whatever my glorious liege wishes," Natanial said, but he did not move from the chair. "I have a boon to request, though."
"Why should I grant it?"
"You'll turn the Dorinah man over to your wind witches," Natanial said. Not a question. It's what Saradyn did with all of the new jistas they uncovered. Still, it surprised him that Natanial knew Saradyn had no intention of ransoming the boy. Oh, he would collect a ransom, but he would not return him.
"You know the answer. He's raw, untrained. A danger to himself and others. You could have ended up in that dying world. You got lucky."
"And he will be a great asset," Natanial said. "A man who can so naturally open doors not across worlds, but across countries."
Saradyn said nothing. He suffered many fools under his command, but Natanial was not one of them.
"No one has been able to unite Tordin because of the geography," Natanial said. "The distances are not great, but moving armies through woods that spring up again half a season after you cut them, trundling over great hill monsters and through clusters of–"
"I'm aware of the issues around Tordin's lack of cohesive governance."
"I see how they train the jistas," Natanial said. "The boy is used to pain. He's learned to enjoy it. Those methods won't help him."
"You think you can turn him?"
"I think putting him into the hands of a woman is the last thing you should do right now."
"You think a Dorinah will be more loyal to his teacher than to me?"
"I can train him," Natanial said. "I know better teachers, with better methods."
"You question my methods?"
"Only for this boy."
"So he is a boy now?"
"I spent much time in his company," Natanial said. "It was often like speaking to a child. Grant me this and my next assignment for you is free."
"Any assignment?"
"Any save a monarch, yes. He'll still be yours, Saradyn. All I ask is that I help shape him. He still thinks you plan to ransom him to Zezili Hasaria."
A disturbing request from any man, a plea for one of his weapons. Saradyn understood treachery. He had been treacherous himself.
"Is this some lecherous thing?" Saradyn said.
Natanial laughed. "Would that it were," he said. "He's Dorinah."
As if that explained everything. But Saradyn had to take that into account. Dorinah men were a different breed, twisted and hobbled like chattel. To twist them further…
"How long?" Saradyn asked.
"Until the autumn."
"But you have my Aaldia assignment."
"I do. He'll come with me. What better test than seeing if he can open a door again for your most prized assassin?"
"You overly flatter yourself. I have less brazen assassins."
"But none so handsome," Natanial said.
"None so arrogant," Saradyn said.
"I can use him to open doors between here and Aaldia, here and Dorinah, here and into the bedroom of whatever petty lord in Tordin you want to die. When he's learned that, we can teach him to transport whole armies across this world, and it will be yours for the taking."
"You think my witches can't do this same thing?"
"To this boy? No. I do not."
Saradyn perceived no ill intention. If Natanial wanted him dead, he would have killed him long ago. If he worked for some other lord, Saradyn could have sniffed that out easily. But Natanial was no one, nothing – a man with a brutal past from some backwater village. No family, no lovers, no ties. If he cared for this boy – in whatever way he cared for him – that gave Saradyn leverage over him in a way that he had never had before. And to have an advantage over his assassin…
"Then take him," Saradyn said. "But I expect results. I want him to move an army by the end of summer, and the season is moving swiftly."
"Done," Natanial said.
Saradyn left him. In the hall, he whistled to Dayns and Sloe. They padded after him. Something about Natanial always unsettled and enraged him, but he found the idea of beating fear into him distasteful. Fear would see him lose that arrogant swagger, that perfect confidence. And fear, Saradyn knew, would make Natanial run. He was not a man to be bought or controlled on fear. Saradyn had not gotten as far as he had by misreading men.
Or whatever it was Natanial pretended to be.
|
(Worldbreaker Saga 2) The Empire Ascendant
|
Kameron Hurley
|
[
"fantasy",
"LGBT",
"science fiction fantasy"
] |
[] |
Chapter 28
|
Kirana's army swept through Dorinah like a plague. She likened it to a campaign she ran very early in the Great War, just before the toxic star entered the sky and everything went to Sina's maw. She needed blood, badly, to fuel the gates and find the missing omajistas the resistance was secreting away across a dozen worlds between hers and this one. She needed death in numbers she did not yet have an army large enough to mete out, so she relied on plague. Yisaoh worked at a field hospital in those days, and Kirana had her fold up the sheets and clothes and comforters of the dead, then donated them to the trading ships heading south to the newly discovered northern continents.
Her army came in two weeks behind the plague, and bottled up blood to ship back to her omajistas. They took an entire northern continent like that. Later, she kept portions of every nation intact to swell the ranks of her army. Plague only worked on isolated populations.
Still, the memory of the villages of corpses in the north was strong as she walked the empty Dorinah towns. She had come upon them so unexpectedly the Empress hadn't had time to mobilize her legions.
She marched straight to Daorian, knowing that once the Empress's seat fell, there would be very little resistance. The upside to the Empress's absolute, unchanging dynasty was that it left very few powerful families in the field to take her place.
"Why so little resistance?" Gaiso asked several weeks into the campaign while they lay camped outside Ladiosyn. Kirana had called her four line commanders together – Gaiso, Madah, Monshara, Yivsa – and Lohin, her intelligence officer.
Lohin said, "She's sent two legions to Sebastyn on an unknown assignment. That's been verified. Without those, she has just two legions left inside the country that can move quickly enough to oppose us. One is already in place around Dorinah. If we can move quickly, we may reach it before the second. The eastern legion is behind us."
"Hoping to smash us against the walls of Daorian," Kirana said. "Not a bad idea. How are we doing with the dajians?" she asked Madah.
Madah was a slim young woman, and looked much like her mother Ghrasia. It had been easier to kill the Madah in this world than her mother, alas. Kirana had wanted to bring over her own Ghrasia. For now, the daughter would have to do. Circumstances were bound to change as the war progressed. They would get this world's Ghrasia eventually. It was only a matter of time.
"A few stragglers," Madah said, "but we're making progress." She made as if to say more, but firmed her mouth. She was a fast-talking woman most days, but she had taken up the habit in recent weeks of cutting herself off after a few sentences and pressing her finger to her mouth, as if urging herself to quiet.
"The farms?" Kirana asked Gaiso.
Gaiso pointed to three large homesteads marked on the map near the lake where they'd crossed over. "These three are being worked now, by our own people. We had six we needed to come through who were stopped at the gate. Somewhere there's six here that are still alive. So we've had to make do."
"Keep the farms untouched. I need every one assigned to our own people."
Gaiso said, "Bringing in a dozen at a time isn't enough to work a farm."
"Without the mirror, this is what we have. We need those farms producing." The mirror, her greatest triumph and greatest failure. She could have dumped an army big enough to colonize Saiduan in six hours if they'd had that mirror operational. Monshara had never given her a satisfactory answer about what had happened. She said only that she had been followed, and the mirror sabotaged. If they weren't so close to the end, she'd have killed Monshara for spite.
"Without dajians–" Madah began.
Kirana frowned at the map. She could bring all her people over, but that was worth nothing if they starved in three months. "Then we switch strategies," she said, remembering the shift she made after the plague left no one to join her army. "Let's save ten percent of every village we rout, to work the farms. Just make sure they're Dorinahs, not dajians."
Monshara shifted her weight. Kirana said, "You have any problem with this, Monshara?"
"Not at all," Monshara said. "She isn't my Empress."
"No, I am," Kirana said. "And it's a testament to my faith in you and your abilities that you're alive after your little fuck up."
Monshara bunched up her mouth into something very like a grimace. Outside the tent, it would have been.
"You know Yisaoh isn't among the dajians here," Gaiso said.
"Maybe, maybe not," Kirana said, "but the shadow of someone's lover or wife or husband or near-cousin certainly is. Eliminating these mirror images helps everyone. Are we decided, then?"
Lohin said. "There's the matter of Nava Sona."
"I'm saving her for Daorian," Kirana said. "That's the problem with shadows. She isn't nearly as well trained as our Nava was. Osoria says she tested with half the ability as our Nava. How that's possible, I don't know. But an omajista is an omajista, and I'm not going to dump her. Anything else?"
Silence. She liked silence. "Then let's get some sleep. Lohin, you stay."
The others left. Lohin waited patiently while she poured herself a drink. She sat in one of the field chairs. Her feet hurt from all the standing. The march to Daorian had been sixteen hours a day for three days straight. Now they rested before the final push, but even the resting was exhausting. She had pushed this army to its limit. Some had already deserted since crossing over. Now that they'd made the crossing to the new world safely, there was nothing binding them to her. She had pondered having them all warded to her, but the logistics of that were even more complicated than feeding upwards of a million new mouths in this country in six months.
"Have we found any more omajistas?" she asked.
"Just Nava," he said. "Nava says the Empress murdered all her Seekers months ago."
"What madness was that?"
"She says the Empress said it was at our order."
Kirana sipped her drink. "Interesting."
"It's possible she thought we'd infiltrated them?"
"No," Kirana said. "The Empress knew we were coming. This was about burning out the fields. She knew we'd look to the Seekers to increase our numbers. I need to know why those legions are in Sebastyn and Tordin, though. That's key."
"Still no progress on that."
"Then get progressing."
Lohin bowed stiffly and took his leave.
She stared after him. A man as point of contact for intelligence in Dorinah was not her first choice, but like Madah, she'd had to make allowances for those who couldn't come over because their shadows lived. All this killing, and the physical rules of the seams between worlds still limited her options.
She took her cup with her and pushed outside her tent. She walked behind the stir of the army to the very edges of the camp. She climbed a slight rise and found a break in the trees. Kirana gazed up at the moons – the same moons as her world, mostly. Ahmur on her world had no tiara of satellites. She wondered where they had gone, on her side – fallen from the sky, in some other part of the world? Or had the diseased versions of her satellites gobbled them up on their entry into the world?
She drank. Questions for thinkers and star gazers. She was neither, really. She heard something behind her. The weapon at her wrist throbbed in answer, and partially extended. She turned.
"Empress?"
It was some infantry-level man, one of the foreign ones. She didn't recall ever having learned his name, though.
"Something I can do for you?" she said.
He bowed deeply, did not meet her gaze. "I saw you walk over here–"
"Out with it."
"I apologize, but there is something you should know… about Lohin."
"Is there now? I suspect you have little to share I don't know, but do entertain me."
"Of course," he said, bowing lower still. "Lohin has been keeping intelligence from you."
"Is that so?" It was not the first time she'd been approached by a member of the infantry hoping to win favor by outing one of her inner circle. "You could have taken this to your line commander."
"I could. But I could not guarantee it reached you."
"Well?"
"There is a legion just a few days behind us."
"I know that, soldier. So does anyone with ears. An entire legion is difficult to hide."
"It's not a legion of Dorinahs."
"What, did they hire mercenaries? How do you know what they're composed of?"
He glanced behind him. "Send another scout. Not one of Lohin's. I could go, but you won't believe me."
"And what's your name?"
"Marister, Empress."
"Marister. From what blighted place? I know that accent. Havasharia? Osadaina?"
"Osadaina," he said. He straightened. "I offered to join your army. I wasn't conscripted."
"It was conscription or death."
"That's how I know they're mercenaries," he said. "They speak my language."
"There is no Osadaina on this world," Kirana said. "You were mistaken."
"That's what I'm trying to tell you," he said. "If there's no Osadaina here, and you… killed or conscripted those of us on our world, where did the Dorinahs get these ones?"
"Fuck," Kirana said.
The other worlds were on the move.
|
(Worldbreaker Saga 2) The Empire Ascendant
|
Kameron Hurley
|
[
"fantasy",
"LGBT",
"science fiction fantasy"
] |
[] |
Chapter 29
|
"It's a small town," Zezili said, watching the wispy smoke of the village's fires waft over the dense woodland below them, "and we've got a lot of mouths to feed."
"It'll keep us until the supply line catches up," Storm said. He stood at the top of a low rise beside Zezili. The new runner told them the town was called Mordid, and had a massive church at the center and about three hundred residents. No fortifications to speak of. Her force was large enough that they likely knew the Dorinahs were nearby, even if they didn't anticipate an attack. After going south for over a week, they were turning east now, to the circular landmark indicated on Storm's maps. What exactly they were meant to uncover in it, Zezili still didn't know, but it looked like a graveyard to her, staring up at them from the map like a great glaring eye. Trouble was, they were short on supplies, their supply lines mired in the tangled wood. The little village would give them enough supplies for the final push.
"I'd like to burn it down," Zezili said of the little town. Destroying something would feel useful, at least. Weeks of traveling through mud, pulling thorny plants from her boots, scrubbing lice from her hair, was like some nightmare.
"And I'd like a new pup," Storm said. "But this is the task. It's best you lead the charge into town. They have no defenses. Should be easy to get in and out."
"You don't want to lead it?"
"You know I cannot."
It took her a moment to remember. She'd gotten so used to him the last couple of weeks she'd forgotten he was a man. "Yeah, sorry."
"Men invest in armor, not weapons," he said. "And this, of course." He tapped his head.
Zezili called up forty of her women – which she thought might be a little much – and began the march down into the valley. She broke them into four groups, ten women across, who hacked at vegetation as they went. She came up with the left flank. Their instructions were to subdue and pillage, taking down as many runners as they could. The King of Tordin would know they had crossed the mountains soon enough. Zezili had to hope that the people the Empress had tasked them to find were going to make up for the fifty thousand men Saradyn was said to be able to call at will.
Her squad leaders communicated with whistles. In deep forest like this, it was more practical than semaphore. She drew her sword and called for the strike. Forty softly padding bears and dogs took off at a swift pace through the brambled woodland. Zezili saw three young women bolt from the edge of a nearby stream. She whistled and gestured for archers. Four arrows snarled toward the running women. Only one found its mark. The woman dropped.
They broke into the clearing outside the village. A few stragglers were still running for cover or breaking for the trees. Zezili shouted at the archers to take a woman hitching her cart to a mangy dog. They had smaller dogs here, yapping things no taller than Zezili's knee that snapped at her army's mounts. The bears made short order of them, but the dogs, including Zezili's, were more skittish about eating their own kind.
A vortex of air exploded on the other side of the village. Zezili saw six of the riders ahead of her tossed upward. They careened into the woods, landing on roofs, smacking into trees.
"Parajista!" she yelled. "Take it out!"
The archers at the back kindled flaming brands. Zezili didn't want the fire to spread too fast or they'd lose the supply stores, but she needed something to distract the jistas' concentration. A sloppy vortex like that in a nowhere village like this meant there weren't more than one or two, and they weren't very skilled. She had not expected a jista way out here. But she had contained a few on her own.
She whistled and gestured for a flanking fire. The arrows zipped off. "Let's clear out these supplies!" she said. Her women had gutted a few of the bolder villagers, but most lay in the dirt now, prostrating themselves. She wondered how often bandits came through here, or perhaps even the king himself, raiding like the petty lord she was.
The roofs around the vortex were aflame now. Zezili dismounted. She would be less of a target on foot. She kept her sword out and menaced forward, encountering no resistance. She grabbed the hair of one of the men on the ground, yanked his head back.
"Jasoi! Ask him where the meat is. We need rice, too."
Jasoi slid off her bear and snapped off something mushy in Tordinian.
The man babbled and pointed to a great building at the center of town that bore a shining eye on its face, not dissimilar to the eye of Rhea.
"Cellar's under the church," Jasoi said.
Zezili called for the nearest dozen of her women, leaving six behind to rummage through personal stores and ensure the pacified natives didn't get bold.
She pushed open the door of the church. A young girl knelt in front of a massive bronze edifice of some large jowled man in a wasp-waisted corset a lot like the one the Empress wore. His feet were not visible beneath his long flowing gown, and he had a strange, beatific expression on his face, as if he were taking a long-held shit while basking in the sun.
Jasoi asked the girl something.
The girl did not look startled at all, which Zezili thought odd, but people did all sorts of weird things while in religious ecstasy.
"Tell her we're not after more death," Zezili said. "Just the supplies."
"People like you always say that," the girl said, in heavily accented Dorinah.
Jasoi kept a hand on her weapon.
"You the parajista?" Zezili asked. If the air turned to mud, she could flatten herself on the ground and crawl under the pews, hoping to evade the girl's line of sight. Without line of sight, it was harder for jistas to hit what they were aiming for. She tensed, ready to drop.
"No," the girl said. She narrowed her eyes. "Is one of you Zezili Hasaria?"
Jasoi tensed, waiting for direction. Zezili scanned the rest of the church, looking for the trap. "We're just after supplies, girl," Zezili said. "We're happy to leave you intact."
"To starve, then?" the girl said. "You say you'll let us live, but the crops aren't even in the ground."
"Plenty of crawling stuff out there to sustain you."
"Zezili Hasaria?" the girl said, nodding. "Yes, that's you. I have word of your husband."
Zezili's heart clenched. "Who the fuck are you?"
"Rosh," she said. "And you're Zezili Hasaria. I know where to find your husband."
"Where is he?"
"South of here," Rosh said. "A week, in Gasira. It's a big stronghold, though. You have a lot of women here, but you won't be able to take it."
"We'll decide what we can and can't take," Zezili said. "How was he? Was he hurt?"
"Hurt? No, he was fine." Rosh's expression got sly. "I could take you there, if you like."
"Just tell me where he is," Zezili said.
"You want Saradyn dead? That's why you're here, isn't it, raiding this village? Well, I want to learn more about Saradyn too. I can take you there."
"Out of the goodness of your little roguish heart?" Zezili said.
"Hardly," Rosh said. "You get Gasira, and your husband. I just need… something else. Just some information. It won't harm you. I won't get in your way."
Zezili eyed Rosh. She stood with hands in pockets, spine straight, fully confident. Just a girl, yes, but Zezili had killed the Kai of the Dhai when she was her age, hadn't she? Saradyn must hate her to pieces. A ruckus came from the doors. Three legionnaires pushed in, Storm at their head.
"Decided to make a showing of it?" Zezili asked.
"There was little resistance," Storm said. "Most are fled by now. Who's this, some priest? Does she know where the cellar is?"
"She knows where Saradyn is," Zezili said. "And my husband."
"What does your husband have to do with this campaign?"
Zezili motioned him over. "A word. Jasoi, you and the others find the cellar. Rosh, you show them? Some good faith, yes?"
Rosh jerked her head toward the rear of the church.
Storm folded his arms. "We can't go marching to take some fortified hold for no reason. We don't have the women for it."
"I can take Anavha back."
"Listen to yourself," Storm said. "What, is he dying?"
"Held hostage, most likely."
"He's worth more to them alive than dead. He'll be fine to wait until we're done. We'll take Gasira eventually."
"You can guarantee me that's so?" Zezili said. "He belongs to me and he's been stolen."
Storm shook his head. "Something's not right with this. You just happen to run into a woman who says she knows who you are, and who your husband is? In a backwater in Tordin?"
"I know, but–"
"Syre!" Storm's page ran into the church, waving her arms like a woman on fire. "There's an army out there!"
Storm said, "What, pitchforks?"
"That parajista was one of Saradyn's!" the page said. "Saradyn's got an army in those woods, and they're coming this way."
|
(Worldbreaker Saga 2) The Empire Ascendant
|
Kameron Hurley
|
[
"fantasy",
"LGBT",
"science fiction fantasy"
] |
[] |
Chapter 30
|
Saradyn rode to the outskirts of the little town of Mordid at the head of a force of fifty, including six wind witches, his parajistas. He considered that entirely adequate to quash a troublesome little village and its resurrected rebel leader.
He did not count on another army already being there.
"What in the fuck is this?" Saradyn said.
The scout before him trembled. "They must have come over the border unnoticed. We're several weeks from the northern border. We couldn't possibly have–"
"How could I have no knowledge of it?"
But there was an easy answer to that, one the sputtering scout would not dare give him. The north was lawless, still. He had few sources there, and not a single town loyal to him. They still worshiped trees and giant plants up there, and had yet to come under the fist of Laine's protection. He saw Natanial picking at his teeth a few paces distance, leaning against a tree. He'd refused to ride the whole distance, but looked more refreshed than any of them. Saradyn pushed down a flare of annoyance.
"She probably has a hundred of them in the town already," the scout said, "and there are hundreds up on the hill on the other side."
"How many hundreds?" Saradyn asked.
The man's eyes were wide. "Hundreds!"
Saradyn made a note to find a scout with a better sense for counting. But even a few hundred to his fifty was far too many. He surveyed the landscape – thick woods. His men didn't know these woods any better than the Dorinahs. Saradyn motioned Tanays forward. Reinforcements wouldn't arrive for six days, at best.
"We can turn away now and come back in force," Tanays said.
"When have I ever done that?"
Tanays cleared his throat. "Lord, there is no tactical advantage here. The girl likely fled when the Dorinahs attacked. We can regroup–"
"Let's begin," Saradyn said, ignoring him. They were small enough that the initial logistics would be easy to communicate. "Wind witches – I want four of you around the village, at the compass points. I need two to stay here for the final push. Archers" – all twenty of them – "at the east and west. Bear cavalry" – all twenty-five – "I'm saving you for the end, after the witches and the archers have thinned them out. We come in with fire. I'm relying on the witches to contain it. Not an ember leaves that village, are we clear?"
He looked for Natanial. But Natanial was no longer leaning against the tree. A quick scan of the ranks told him the assassin wasn't there either. He had slipped off before he could be ordered about.
Tanays leaned over. "You'll sacrifice every person–"
"Then they shouldn't have harbored a criminal," Saradyn said sharply. "We showed them leniency the last time we were here. They may see cruelty, but I see an avoidance of foolishness. Burn it down, and every Dorinah with it."
Zezili made for the door of the cathedral. Storm sprinted past her, but it was Zezili who yelled for the scout to run back up the hill for the Sebastyn parajistas.
She broke into the town square and pivoted, trying to figure out the plan of attack. The air thickened. She saw a shimmering wave of air out behind the cathedral.
"How many?" Storm was asking the scout. "How many?"
"I don't know. Fifty? A hundred? They're up on the opposite rise. There could be another force."
Zezili mounted her dog and rallied the women she had brought down with her. Her first instinct was to mash them all together into a defensive circle, shields and weapons facing out. The scout had seen Saradyn's men in the east, but that didn't mean there weren't more.
"West!" Zezili yelled at Storm. "Retreat west!" There was no reason to hold her position. They had come to the village for supplies, but food was worth nothing if Saradyn smashed them here between two armies. Her biggest worry was that if that was indeed Saradyn up there, he'd discovered them a full week from their destination. And if that was so, she had run out of time to figure out the Empress's intent. Saradyn would rout them before she found Anavha or destroyed the Empress's weapon.
Storm roared at the ranks, his booming voice now a useful asset instead of annoying grievance.
Zezili felt the air pressure increase. "Parajistas!" she called. "Counter!"
The village was small, but so crowded with flaming houses and terrified civilians that rallying a line to protect their retreat took longer that it should have.
Finally, the parajistas appeared behind her, two hawk-faced Sebastyns. "They're deploying–" one began.
"Counter it the fuck down then!" Zezili said. She missed Tulana, sensible Tulana who would have known precisely what to tell them. "Cover our retreat."
They fanned out behind Zezili's loose line of troops, the two lines of five, and she felt a whump of air, a blast of dirt. She hated that she couldn't see any of it.
"Shields up!" she called at the ten who'd rallied. "Shields up, lances ready. Cover and forward."
Zezili urged her dog forward as the village burned around them. If it was her on that rise and she knew she outnumbered them, she'd circle to burn them out. If she made a fast retreat, she could slip the noose.
She barreled after her forces, following the purple flag of Storm's page into the woods.
The flanking force hit her as they broke into the trees, cutting her and the ten from the main body of the retreat. The mass of them was shocking. Her people were outnumbered four to one, maybe more.
Zezili pounded through the first wave of the bear cavalry. She unseated a scrawny little man on a scraggly bear. Other men were bigger; Tordin bred its men large. They did not restrict or cull them, and it led to monstrously hairy creatures, ridiculous figures, like watching bears ride bears. But most of the fat and hair was bluster, and they died the same as any other soldier on the field.
Two bodies lay in the dirt behind her. Her shoulder was already aching. The army's blades were plain metal, like hers. Not an infused weapon in sight. A shaggy youth on a great bear barreled toward her. She deflected blows from two more already within the reach of her weapon, felling one. Then the wild youth was on top of her. She turned her bear just in time. He caught its head instead of hers.
Her bear fell under her. She rolled free, coming up, miraculously, without impaling herself on her own blade. Two more men on bears swept toward her, swinging from either side. She ducked between them. Their blades missed her and grazed one another's mounts. Their bears snarled and attacked one another, spitting great gobs of drool.
Three of Zezili's women had been knocked from their mounts and stood back to back with shields up and lances out. She limped to their little circle and made herself a part of it.
"Work toward the woods," she said, inching them forward as a group toward the trees. If they could make it deeper into the trees Saradyn's men could not come at them in groups. They could scatter and meet up with the rest of the others later.
Only one of her woman remained mounted. She took point at the head of their group as five riders turned around and rallied toward them.
Zezili heard others coming down through the village, a full-on assault now, not a noose. Parajista-fueled winds blew through the tops of the trees. Zezili saw one of her Sebastyn parajistas dead, mangled on the scrubby ground. The other was nowhere to be seen.
The woods crawled with cavalry. How was she outnumbered? What was he doing taking a force this size into—
Then she saw the force making all the ruckus coming through the village: four parajistas, and two men on bears. The parajistas were making a fine show, ripping the roofs from houses, obliterating carts and kennels and grain houses. The top of the church splintered.
Five of Saradyn's cavalry ran at their position, and six more of his men came up behind them. Eleven against her four would be the end.
Zezili screamed at them, furious. Her women took up the scream all around her – fiery, shrieking warmongers all.
The cavalry crashed into their shield circle.
Bears weighed a ton, on average. Five tons of force broke their line neatly, and the six tons coming after them trampled them over.
Zezili was crushed under the weight of the two women next to her, folded behind them by the first charge. The second wave pounded right over her. Her wrist snapped. It was her left wrist. The one holding the sword. Her only good hand.
She howled.
The men dismounted and came back with swords out.
Zezili yanked a corded necklace from the woman next to her using the remaining fingers of her right hand. She pushed her sword into her right hand and used her teeth to tie the blade to her right hand, then crawled out from under the bodies of her women.
The woman on the bear had been unseated and run through with a pike. She kicked on the ground at Zezili's left, huffing blood and asking for a priestess.
Zezili distanced herself from her, edging back toward the woods while the men advanced.
Running was not much of an option, with her ragged gait. Her left hand hung uselessly beside her.
"Shit," she said aloud, because if she was going to get a last line, that sounded best.
The men swarmed her.
She pivoted and shoved the first away with her right shoulder. She thrust the blade forward, running one man through.
Someone moved behind her. She could not rally fast enough. She felt the thwack on her skull. Black spots, a burst of light. Zezili hit the ground face first.
Yelling. Not hers. She had a mouth full of loam. Her fucking wrist hurt. She spit leaves, turned just in time to see a tall, wiry man standing over her. Black hair brushing a bared collar, a beak of a nose that was still somehow attractive in the long face.
"Your name," he said.
"Fuck you."
"Anavha Hasaria," he said.
She flopped her tangled sword arm forward. He stepped on her wrist. Pain rocked up her arm.
"I've heard quite a lot about your face," he said. "I like it, but I think Anavha may find it shocking."
"Natanial!"
Another man, yelling from on top of a bear. Zezili could only see the bear's paws from this vantage.
The wiry man stood, foot still on her wrist. "Call Saradyn over," Natanial said. "We have one of the legion commanders."
|
(Worldbreaker Saga 2) The Empire Ascendant
|
Kameron Hurley
|
[
"fantasy",
"LGBT",
"science fiction fantasy"
] |
[] |
Chapter 31
|
It was Rosh, sure as he breathed. The same pinched face, the masculine confidence, the lanky frame and freckled nose. But she was without one core component, one essential element that obliterated all the rest, and gave away what she really was.
Rosh's ghosts were gone.
She was a blank canvas, a being without a past, without regret. She had left all of that on some other world. She was just a poor copy of the first.
Saradyn drew himself up and felt a smile tug at his mouth. He had feared some other madness, some new trick of Laine's come to rise with his eye, the star called Oma. But this girl was just another of the same foe he'd been fighting for six years – the darker doubles, the shadowy fey who had been encroaching into Tordin for over a decade, maybe longer. The sight Laine gave him made it easy to uncover them. It was his greatest curse, and his greatest gift.
Rosh lay in the dirt outside the ruined church, restrained by two of his men.
"I know what you are," Saradyn said.
She struggled in the dirt. "King Saradyn," she said, "I can explain everything."
"Which world sent you? Was it to destroy me? Because I can't be destroyed."
"Please," she said. "Let me up. I'll explain."
"Saradyn!" Tanays rode over from the other side of the village. "We have one of their legion commanders."
"Who?"
Tanays looked surprised. "I don't know. Natanial recognized her."
"Stay with this one." Saradyn rode over to the edge of the village, accompanied by his page and one of the wind witches. He did not trust that the entire army had slipped his net.
He moved through a scattering of corpses, mostly civilian, but many of his and a few of the Dorinah. That bothered him. His men should have had the advantage here in their own territory, outnumbering this force. But grit went a long way on the battlefield, and the women may have had it in great numbers, being on the losing end of this one. Perhaps his men had gotten cocky. He had long ago learned not to underestimate the Dorinah. They were fueled by witchcraft.
Natanial stood over a body well away from what looked like a final holdout – four women with shields trampled into the dirt, their blood turning the soil to churning mud. A few of Saradyn's men waited around her, some mounted, some not.
He came up beside their catch. She was a filthy creature, scarred to the point of malformation. He kissed his thumb and offered it to Laine, a sign against deformity. Would that he was put down before he looked like that.
"I suggested she may be worth more to us alive," Natanial said.
"Good eye. Bring her with us."
"What of the army?" Tanays asked.
"An army without a head is no army at all. They'll go back to Dorinah, if they have any sense. But put three trackers on them. I want to know where they're headed. It's far too small for an invasion. If they're meeting a greater force, I need to know."
"You don't think she'll talk?" Tanays said.
"Look at her. You think I could do worse to her?"
"You don't recognize her, do you?" Natanial said.
"You know her?"
"That's Zezili Hasaria," Natanial said. "We have her husband back in Gasira."
"That boy becomes more and more useful by the day," Saradyn said. "Rope her up. I have two fine trophies from this venture."
Saradyn sat up with Rosh nearly a week later in a little village outside Gasira. He did not want to wait any longer for her interrogation, as the things she said about fire raining from the sky was scaring his men. Life was fearful enough now without her putting more ideas in their heads.
"How did you get here?" Saradyn asked.
She sat roped to a chair near the fire in the main room of a tavern he had generously acquired from the local inn keep for a reasonable fee. Spring had arrived, but the nights were still cool.
She shook her head.
"I have been more than fair to you," Saradyn said, leaning forward. "Fed you, clothed you, kept my men from you. Things could have gone far differently. I could sell you off as a servant here, or a slave somewhere else. I could use you for any number of terrible purposes. But I am a civilized man. All I ask for is information. Which of the worlds sent you? Is your Empress Kirana or Sovonia?"
"Sovonia is not an Empress."
"Ah, I see," Saradyn sat back. "You are correct. She is not. She is… what, exactly? A seer, a rebel leader? You see, Empress Kirana I understand. I know her motives. She comes from a dying world. But yours is something else, isn't it? You're mere explorers. Parasites. I have even less tolerance for you."
"The transference engines–"
"What are those?"
Rosh bit her lip. He had noticed strange things about this one. She was plumper than the other Rosh, but narrower in the face, her hair longer. Small differences, but they added up. What interested him most was the similarity of names. What compelled one to name these people the same across different versions of their worlds, even when the power structures were so different? What magic was in a name?
"I have pieced together quite a lot in this little backwater," Saradyn said. "That's what one of your other little spies called it. A backwater, like a latrine, and I know there are more of you in my holds, hiding out like rats, ferrying each other information that you can use out here to get people like Zezili Hasaria onto your side. Eventually I will hunt down all of you. But I've known of your presence here since I was a child, since I could see the strangers without… strangers with differences. I saw you and pointed it out when others could not. I will always see you, you understand?"
Rosh stared hard at the floor.
Saradyn turned to Tanays. "Bring in the dogs."
Rosh raised her head. He saw the fear bloom there, like a flower.
"Something you wanted to tell me," he said, "before I leave you with the dogs?"
It was the same for all of them, from that world, this fear of dogs. He had different names for all the worlds – he had identified five of them, so far, and called them by their primary agent, numbered by the frequency with which he ran into members of their respective scouting parties: Kirana, Sovonia, Gian, Aradan, and Kalinda. It bothered him that so many primary actors were women. Why was that? Was there a message in that, something he should understand?
"We use the transference engines," she said. "They amplify the power of the stars, even if they aren't ascendant. They can call to them between worlds. That's where they go when they're not here, the stars. They don't orbit. They blink out. Between worlds."
"That's an interesting theory."
"That's science," she said.
"Science?"
"Science."
"Sounds like witchcraft."
"I have not met one sane person in this world," Rosh muttered.
"You know why you were able to come over now?" he asked.
"We can come over when our… counterpart here dies. I'm an explorer," she said. "A missionary, if you will. You don't need to treat me poorly. If you know what I am, you know that whatever the person you knew did here, I have nothing to do with it."
"And if you and your little explorers take any kind of notes at all," Saradyn said, "you'd know what I do with your kind when I find them."
She had the sense to lose a bit of color; even with her ruddy complexion, he noticed it.
"I think you should consider what you can learn from me."
"What is it you're learning from me?" he asked. "I know you're scuttling all around Grania, not just Tordin. Are you taking sides in this fight? Preparing for an invasion?"
"We are purely here to explore this phenomena. You don't seem to understand how important–"
Saradyn stood. He flicked a hand at Natanial.
"That's all?" Natanial said.
"That's all."
"Seems brutish."
"So is life."
Natanial stepped forward quickly, and before Rosh could utter a single complaint, he neatly snapped her neck.
She slumped forward.
"A waste of my talent," Natanial said. "I'm an artist, not a brute."
"I'll decide what you are."
Saradyn expected a retort, but Natanial said only, "Is Zezili next?"
"No, I'm tired. As I said, it's not worth talking to her without the husband."
Natanial nodded and went to the door. Dayns and Sloe whined outside. Natanial let them in as he left.
Saradyn sat across from Rosh's body and petted the dogs. He stared at her in the flickering firelight. How did one guard against espionage from another world? It was as if some other being had shot down from the moons and started spouting off nonsense about another realm. He had trouble enough reconciling the fact that Dorinah could exist in the same world he did, let alone these aliens.
Dayns whined at him. He stroked her ears. "Hush now," he said. "Have I not kept you safe?"
Safer than he had kept any human being in his care. Rosh's limp head, the lanky hair, reminded him of the day he murdered the Thief Queen, Quilliam. She had been his ward for some years, but he failed at that, and farmed her out, and look what she had become; raised by fools and savages, running off into the woods to join with thieves and miscreants, intent on destroying all he wanted to build here. Who was she, to pass judgment on him? Just a foolish girl like this one. They blamed him for destroying her, but what choice did she leave him? What choice did any of them leave him?
Dayns whined again.
"What is it?" he said. "Come now, we are safe. We're almost home."
Sloe began to bark.
Saradyn frowned at them both and went to the door.
People were coming out of their houses, entering the damp streets; it had rained just that morning. They pointed and gasped at the sky.
Saradyn squinted at them. His vision was blurry. He called to Dayns and Sloe. They barked and ran through the line of figures, dispelling them like mist.
He huffed out a breath. Was he hallucinating an army of ghosts, now? A whole town of ghosts?
He gazed into the sky, and saw Para blazing there on the horizon. What star had those ghosts been seeing? He didn't know. He feared to guess.
He got down on his knees, and raised his hands to Laine.
Saradyn prayed for clear vision, and a gift that felt less like a curse.
|
(Worldbreaker Saga 2) The Empire Ascendant
|
Kameron Hurley
|
[
"fantasy",
"LGBT",
"science fiction fantasy"
] |
[] |
Chapter 32
|
So this was Saradyn. Not a tall man, but broad, like a tree eclipsed by its fellows that made up for height with girth, crowding out all those around it. Blood rushed down Zezili's face. She told herself that head wounds were all bluster. She wasn't vomiting or confused, not any more than usual, but she bled all that first night, trussed up on the other side of the fire from Saradyn, self-styled king of Tordin, and his most intimate familiars. They were all men, which she supposed shouldn't have surprised her, but she had never in her life been the only woman in a group, and it unsettled her. She was very obviously out of place, and it wasn't just because hers were the only bound hands.
She saw the Rosh girl occasionally the first few days, but she noticed the girl didn't come out of the tavern that Saradyn and his lackeys pulled her into at the end of the week. Why hadn't they just killed her back there on the field? Who was she to them? Zezili did not speak Tordinian, and it put her at a distinct disadvantage. The tall man with the big nose had known who she was, but Saradyn hadn't seemed to until they had a rapid-fire conversation over her body. She wasn't sure what that meant. It crossed her mind that Big Nose may have been the same one to take Anavha, or at least the one in Saradyn's inner circle to recognize who Anavha was and keep him alive for ransom.
But if she, too, was their prisoner, they'd get no ransom from her. Best case, they hoped to sell her back to the Empress, then have her buy out Anavha too. As the blood caked on her face that night, she feared they would find the Empress less than receptive to that offer. A second failure meant death, and though Storm and the rest of the force still had a head start on getting where she wanted them to go, Zezili's fate was not tied to theirs any longer. She was on her own.
It was a week back to wherever it was they ended up – some no-nothing little town not much bigger than the one they'd just come from. The town stank, like they were still shitting in pots and throwing them into alleys. Plumbing seemed to be a thing of legend. The only evidence of its existence – in the past, at least – was a large, cracked fountain they passed just off the main road. It sprouted up from the center of a tiled floor of what once may have been some grand estate, but now lay in ruins, slowly devoured by the woods. The trees here were big, mostly ever pines, and instead of burning out the vegetation on either side of the roads they lined them in big concrete blocks slathered in lye that ate through the concrete as surely as it did the vegetation that tried to survive there.
Everything she saw gave the impression the Tordinians were rats, maggots living on the bones of some collapsed civilization. History told her that was truth – the Empress's cousin, Penelodyn, had ruled northern Tordin for almost a hundred years, bringing civilization to great swaths of the locals. But they'd rebelled and tossed her out and this is where it left them – worshipping some mad king and shitting in buckets.
Two big male soldiers hauled her into the rickety main hold of the shitty little town. The hold was mostly wood, built on the massive stone base of some far older building. She wasn't much up to resisting by then. She sweated and shook with fever. Her wrist hadn't been tended to, and it was bruised black and swollen. But the fever came from some other wound, something open – either the throbbing, oozing lump on her head or the blazing score on her back. She hadn't even noticed the wound in her back until hours after the end of the battle. Some ax had caught her there. It wasn't deep – her armor had resisted most of the blow – but nine days without even a wash and it was a burning brand on her shoulder now, like someone had set a hot stone on it.
They dropped her in a cell in the basement – cold, no windows – and shut the door. The darkness was total.
How long she was there, alone in the dark, she didn't know. The fever took her under. She dreamed of little black dogs with paws as big as their faces. They opened great mouths and ate their own feet. Anavha was there, writhing under her, squealing that she was hurting him, and just as she was about to reach her own release, reveling in her power, her absolute control of this beautiful body, the eye of Rhea glared down at her, filling her whole vision.
The eye filled her cell with light.
Zezili shielded her eyes. The pain left her body. She felt the blazing gaze of Rhea on her. It saw all of her worst acts: her slaughter of countless dajians, the genocide of an entire people, heaped on her willing shoulders. And the others – the dajians in her own care who she maimed and murdered; the husband she abused; the women she sent on fool's errands she knew would end in death, just to avoid the troubling politics of discharging them.
"But I did it in your name!" Zezili said. "For the will of the Empress! I am yours. I am hers. I am–"
Rhea knew what she was.
She belonged to herself. She had made her own life, forged in fire, on the bloody backs of others. No choice, though, no choice. If she was not stepping on another's back, someone else would step on hers. She had not made the world, but she had to live in it.
She had thrived only because she had given up her humanity.
The light went out.
Zezili gasped and opened her eyes. A plump man stood next to her, dressed in some white garment. He hushed her. She was tied to a table.
"What is this?" she said.
"For your own protection," he said. His head was shaved bald – his eyebrows, too.
A fire blazed in a hearth. The room was lined in clay jars, and stank of incense and cardamom and other spices she could not discern.
"Where on Rhea's tit am I?" Zezili snarled.
"Just doing a bit of cleaning up," the man said in heavily accented Dorinah. He picked up a very large saw, the length of his forearm.
Zezili's gut roiled. She looked at her left hand, her good fucking hand, the bloated, blackened flesh. "Set the bone, you fool!" she said.
"I'm sorry," he said, "it's gone to rot."
Zezili jerked in her restraints. Four big men came up from behind her. Held her down. She tried to bite them. Her fever had broken, and she was exhausted, weaker than she should be.
The Empress and her cats. Saradyn and his men with saws.
"Where is my husband!" she yelled. "Where is he? When I get out of this shit I will murder every last one of you. Every one. I'll impale you with this bloody fucking stump. I will impale the fuck out of you, cut off your fucking cocks, shove them down your cowardly throats. You'll suffocate on your own testicles, you fucking–"
Her tirade made the plump man tremble.
Then a voice from the doorway, in Tordinian, said something like an order, and again, in Dorinah, "They'll do it."
It was the lean man who'd spoken of Anavha, the one with the beak of a nose. "They'd take your tongue, too," he said, "but Saradyn needs that, he says."
"I don't know who the fuck you are, but I'll take your fucking cock too," Zezili said. She was frothing. Spit flecked her mouth.
"You're welcome to what I have of one," he said. "My name is Natanial Thorne. I expect you'll remember it."
The saw bit into her wrist.
Zezili howled.
|
(Worldbreaker Saga 2) The Empire Ascendant
|
Kameron Hurley
|
[
"fantasy",
"LGBT",
"science fiction fantasy"
] |
[] |
Chapter 33
|
Anavha whiled away his days in the great, drafty hold playing board games and learning to play cards with the guards, both men. They thought him ridiculous, he knew, but they seemed to soften to him after a time, as if he were some child in need of tending. He learned about their families. One, a widower with six children; the other, a young man not much older than Zezili, courting a woman in a neighboring village. Anavha found himself both fascinated and horrified at their courtship practices. The young man said he'd never had sex with a woman, and intended to wait until she accepted his proposal, at the very least. Anavha admitted he had probably had sex with a dozen women before he married Zezili.
They both looked at him as if he were some horrifying insect, crawled up from gnawing on a corpse. Then the widower laughed, slapping his great knee.
"Dorinah!" he said. "What a place that must be!"
"It was not very pleasant," Anavha admitted. "It wasn't… it's not what you think."
But the younger one started joking as well. So Anavha pressed a smile onto his face: smile, smile, and pretend at joviality. He had spent much of his life smiling, but in that moment, with these two unbound, gregarious men, he found that he was very tired of smiling.
He was given new clothes, clean but plain and garish, like something a prisoner would wear, yes, but most men in Tordin seemed to wear these blandly cut trousers, tunics with square-cut collars, leather vests that fell to their knees, cinched with a belt. Drab green and brown and dark blue colors. Anavha had not seen a flash of red since they left Aaldia a month before.
In truth, he missed the Aaldians. Their broad smiles. Easy laughter. The intentness of their gazes when they spoke to you, as if what you said was the most important thing in the world. He and Natanial had spent two nights with an Aaldian friend of Natanial's, a broad-cheeked woman with an absurd yellow hat like a cone who taught him the Aaldian alphabet and numbers, all written out into practice books of expensive paper that she let him take when he left. He liked the look of the Aaldian script. It put him in mind of running rivers, and the eddies of currents. But he had lost the books during their difficult crossing of the Mundin mountains, and now he drew the symbols of the script from memory on the wall of his cell with a charred stick; the guards thought it was some kind of art.
Outside his artistic scribbling, Anavha spent a lot of time staring at the window above his bed, remembering his long days at Zezili's estate, waiting for something to happen to him. A year into their marriage, Zezili had been pregnant for a time. That had excited him terribly. The men he knew from his days in the mardanas were all fathers within a year of their marriages, raising strong, beautiful children for Dorinah. But when he met with them during the early days when Zezili was still sharing him with her sisters in the city, he had no children of his own to speak about. Their little tea house meetings – always out on the sidewalk, as unescorted men were not allowed inside – became awkward. He would listen to them talk, smiling beatifically, saying nothing, while one of Zezili's sister's dajians watched him from a nearby table to ensure he didn't get into any trouble.
As soon as Zezili's sisters bore children, he rarely saw them. Their care was relegated to house dajians. He longed to be a father, and spent endless nights after learning of her pregnancy thinking up names, and the stories he would read to her, and the trees he would help her climb, and how much she would love him, and he would love her, and they would be a family.
But that was all just dreamy nonsense. Zezili miscarried three months into her pregnancy, as she would miscarry twice more in their marriage. She was not a woman built to make life, she told him. Just take it.
That left him here, alone in Tordin with two jailers, losing time, his life, to chatter and nonsense. Nothing had changed but the scenery of the bedroom.
Two weeks into his gilded captivity, the younger guard, Mays, came to his room. Anavha glanced up from his Aaldian writing – he was writing a poem, he decided, about birds in cages. It was too early for cards.
"The King is back," Mays said, "Natanial with him. Thought you'd like to know they ran into some of your friends. Dorinahs."
Anavha had not thought Mays his friend, but it seemed a kindness, to tell him that. "Did anyone ask for me?"
"Natanial's coming up. He'll be upset you haven't gotten fat."
Much of the guards' good humor, Anavha always suspected, was because they were trying to get him to eat more than was good for him. Until now, he didn't realize it was some order from Natanial, who had pressed lard-soaked rice and pork fat at him for most of their journey in Aaldia.
"Thank you," Anavha said.
Mays hesitated, and his clear, bright face darkened for a long moment. "I'll miss you," he said.
"I'm not going anywhere," Anavha said.
"Sure, of course," Mays said.
"Can you bring me clean water? I want to wash up."
"Of course," Mays said, and shut the door.
Anavha waited for the water before he undressed. It was not Mays who brought it up, but a guard he'd never seen before. The man set the bucket down inside the door without a word. It was barely lukewarm.
Anavha sponged himself off and dressed in his cleanest clothes, the terrible Tordinian ones. Natanial hadn't even let him keep his Aaldian garments, the broad robes and heavy purple drapes and deep cowls. He admitted he missed Aaldia more than he missed Dorinah. No one treated him like a man in Aaldia. They treated him like a person.
He was reading over the poem on the wall when Natanial entered. He carried a tray of rice and buttered greens circling a gravy-soaked hunk of some kind of meat, most likely bear. Anavha hated bear.
Natanial slid the tray onto the table on the other side of the room. The table was a battered but functional piece that Anavha mostly used for the card games.
"Well," Natanial said, peering at the Aaldian script on the walls. "Are you out of paper, or run to madness already?"
"They said the historian wouldn't authorize any paper for me," Anavha said. "There's a shortage."
"We're at war with the province that makes most of it," Natanial said. He made as if to expand on that, but stopped. Motioned to the table.
"Come sit with me," Natanial said.
"I'm not hungry."
"Eat."
"I told you, I'm not hungry."
"Mays and Foryer say you haven't eaten a full meal in three days."
"I like staying slim."
"You're starving."
"Zezili likes me thin."
Natanial grimaced. "Of course she does. Starving people are easier to confuse and control. Ask any dictator. Get up here."
Anavha reluctantly sat across from Natanial. His stomach growled, betraying him. Trying to keep his expression stoic made his whole face hurt. Natanial once listened to him cry for three hours in Aaldia, and in the end, he'd had to eat it all anyway.
"You telling me to eat is no better," Anavha said.
"Don't listen to me then. Listen to your stomach. Listen to yourself." Natanial tapped the plate.
Anavha's stomach hurt, but his stomach always hurt. Hunger was a vice. If you worked hard enough at it, you could capture and contain it. If you were strong enough, you could eliminate hunger all together.
"I don't know what that means," Anavha muttered, and pushed his plate away. He saw the blobs of glistening fat tremble on the plate. Definitely bear meat.
Natanial sat across from him. "I have good news. Saradyn agreed to leave your care and training to me, for a time."
"What does that change?"
"It means he won't turn you over to his wind witches to be beaten and tortured."
"Oh."
"Thank you would be nice."
"Thank you for–" for kidnapping me, he almost said, and bit his tongue. He told Natanial the truth of what he felt far too often. Natanial had never struck him. Maybe that made him too bold. Maybe Zezili was right, and he needed a firm hand to keep him on the path to Rhea's embrace. He certainly wasn't going to get there speaking everything that came into his head.
Natanial laughed. "You say what you want," he said. "Go on. I'm not Zezili."
"If it wasn't for you," Anavha said slowly, "I wouldn't need protection from Saradyn."
"That's true," Natanial said. "You'd be cutting yourself open in front of a monstrous spouse who was as concerned with that as she would be with a dog that bashed its head repeatedly into its kennel. You know what she'd do with the dog, eventually? She'd have it put down."
"You don't know anything about Zezili."
Natanial narrowed his eyes. "That's being remedied," he said. He stepped away from the table. "We'll start training in the morning with a friend of mine. Get you some fresh air. If you don't eat, you'll be hungry. I'm not bringing some palanquin out here to haul you out into the woods."
"I'd rather write more poetry," Anavha said.
"Yes, well, wouldn't we all? But that's not the world we're living in. So eat up, and prepare yourself."
Anavha stared at the plate a few minutes more after Natanial left. Then he picked up the tray and dumped its contents in his refuse bucket.
For eight days, Natanial led Anavha out into the woods, a two hour walk from the main keep, to meet with his friend Coryana. Natanial seemed to have a great many women friends in many countries. Anavha would not have thought that odd except that they never seemed to visit any men, and in Tordin, the population of men and women was far more equal than in Dorinah. Anavha saw men everywhere: tall, fat, thin, short, lanky, muscular, and hairy – very hairy. But they never stayed with any of them.
When Anavha asked him about that after the first day as they walked home, Natanial shrugged. "Never thought about it," he said. "I suppose I just feel more comfortable with women, and they with me. They don't mind my… peculiarities."
"Like being an assassin?"
"Oh, that too," he said, and did not elaborate.
The third day, Anavha didn't want to get out of bed. Natanial dragged him half the length of the hall outside his cell until he relented.
His friend Coryana was no better. However much Anavha insisted he was of no use to anyone – that someone had played a cruel joke on them and he wasn't gifted – they carried on. For hours. Their patience grated. He didn't understand it.
On the eighth day, hungry and exhausted, unable to remember the bit of poetry Coryana had been trying to get him to use to focus his thoughts, he threw himself to the warm spring ground among the wildflowers and sobbed.
"Get up, Anavha," Natanial said. "We go again."
Anavha curled up next to a stump, huffing in the smell of the fresh everpine shavings. "I can't. I can't."
"I can outlast you," Natanial said. "You get up and do as Coryana tells you. Then we get to have a rest. It's your choice. Make good choices."
Anavha keened. He could not say why his whole body rebelled, why he wanted to scream and seethe with every fiber of his body; fear and sobbing were his only tools, the only ones that didn't get him beaten. If he showed anger or violence he would be harmed. Crying was the only emotion his world ever allowed him. If he had any power, it was in his tears, and he was well versed in using them.
But Natanial remained unmoved.
Anavha lay crying until his face felt puffy and his eyes hurt. He cried until there were no more tears to squeeze out.
An hour later, Anavha was standing again, concentrating on the susurrus of Tordinian words Coryana whispered to him. Listen, repeat. Pull.
"Like breathing, a second breath," she said. "A breaking apart. A release."
Release.
Anavha saw the blood welling from the cuts in his arms, the bloody knife, the parting of the world.
Release.
He gasped.
A threading needle of power rippled beneath his skin. It felt like hot liquid seeping into his organs. He wanted to vomit it out like some vile poison.
Release.
The poetry. He repeated the poem again, sharpening his focus, and the liquid poured from his body, a bloody burst of light that tangled together like a misty ball of yarn. But instead of blowing apart the tree, or starting some fire, the misty red ball of threads dissipated in the warm air.
Anavha let out his breath.
Natanial came up beside him, arms folded, and shared a long look with Coryana.
She pressed her hand to Anavha's shoulder. "There it is. You see?"
"And you didn't even have to bleed on anything," Natanial said.
"This is enough for today," Coryana said. She was smiling for the first time, her voice full of warmth. "A controlled, first-time draw is the most difficult," she said. "The rest will come easily, in comparison."
Anavha started crying. He wasn't even sure why this time.
"Hush now," Coryana said.
"It was well done, Anavha," Natanial said. "We'll go home now, all right?"
But far from being proud, Anavha felt sick, and powerless.
Natanial hauled him back into his room – not ungently – but because Anavha refused to stand, he had to be dragged by the arm the whole way down the hall outside his cell. He was screaming the whole way, shrieking like he was dying, because it felt like dying, being pushed to do something, to be something, he did not want to be. And he was so tired.
Natanial dumped him in his room and closed the door.
Anavha lay on the floor in the dark for at least ten minutes more, sobbing until there were no tears, just huffing, choking anger.
Clouds roiled in the world beyond his little window, revealing the moons. A well-appointed prison was still a prison.
Anavha pulled off all his clothes and grabbed the empty wooden tray on the table. He smashed it against the table again and again until it splintered to pieces. He took the biggest piece and began sharpening it against the rough stone until he had a good point on it. Then he pressed it to his arm, sawing at flesh. When that didn't work, he stabbed, and the tears came again. He was completely out of control. He had no control over his life. They had taken this too, his ability to decide what he ate, and what he did to his own body.
Slivers of wood embedded themselves into his flesh. He threw the stake away. It thunked on the far wall. He sagged to his knees and bowed in front of his wall of Aaldian poetry. He pressed his hands to the words and wiped them all out, smearing his hands in char.
When it was gone, he lay still on the floor, staring at the window.
The door opened.
Natanial came in, illuminated by the bold white light of the moons. Tall and lean, his beak of a nose made bolder by the shadows, he was like some bird of prey – powerful, beautiful.
"Oh, Anavha," he said. He picked Anavha up and brought him to the bed and lay him down.
Anavha wrapped his arms around him and pressed his face to his warm chest. He was out of tears, but he trembled just the same.
"The world is mad," Anavha said.
"Yes." Natanial stroked his hair, pressed his rough hand against the nape of Anavha's neck.
Anavha pulled away, so their faces were a breath apart. What he saw in Natanial's gaze was the same unnamable thing he felt.
"Take me from here," Anavha said.
Natanial traced the line of Anavha's mouth. The desire his touch inspired coursed through Anavha's body, hot and breathtaking. For a moment he felt a terrible shame, but who was here to see them? Not Zezili. Not the priestesses. He was aware of his nakedness, and the obviousness of his desire.
"If I take you, my own captive," Natanial said softly, "a young man adrift in a strange land, then I'm no better than Zezili, am I? Power can be monstrous, can make men monstrous. I'm an artist, not a monster."
"But I…" What? Anavha thought. What did he want, really? Did he know? "I want you," he said, and it felt rebellious, impossible, like saying bears could dance in the clouds.
"You don't know what you want." Natanial released him. "We'll take a day or two to rest, then start again. I know this is difficult, and difficult things can be painful, but it will make you stronger, more in control of your own life, do you understand?"
Anavha did not, but he nodded.
Natanial shut the door, leaving Anavha alone in the darkness.
Anavha sat a moment more before he realized how cool the room was. He pulled on his night gown and noticed someone had put out his dinner earlier, before he returned to the room. He hadn't even noticed.
Anavha pulled up a chair. The plate was heavy with thick hunks of rye bread piled in rice and meat gravy. They left no utensils. He wasn't permitted eating sticks or the pronged implements that Tordinians used, but they usually left a spoon. Not this time. The smell of the cold food made him salivate. How long since he cared to notice hunger?
He ate with his fingers, smearing gravy on his chin, until the food was gone.
The next morning, he dressed and washed first thing, and sat waiting for Natanial at the table. He ate his breakfast, most of it, because he really was overfull.
While he waited he murmured the words of the poetry Coryana had been intoning all week. He wrote it onto the smeared charcoal wall with his charred stick. He concentrated on calling the breath of power, until he felt it crawling under his skin, a whisper, a whiff—
The door opened, and he lost the thread of power. The mist dissipated.
He stood, smiling, but it was not Natanial. It was Mays, looking apologetic.
"You're cleaned up all ready?" he asked.
"Yes," Anavha said. "I'm training with Natanial today."
"Not today," Mays said, "King Saradyn wants me to bring you downstairs. He wanted to make sure you were made up and presentable."
Anavha smoothed his tunic. "I am."
"Good, all right." Nodding.
"What's wrong?"
"No one's told you, have they?"
"I've been training with Natanial."
"So he didn't say anything about it?"
"About what?"
Mays chewed his lip. "Maybe you can just–"
"What, Mays?"
"King Saradyn wants to present you to your wife," he said. "Zezili Hasaria has been our captive for weeks, and he thinks she's softened up enough to see you. They're in the dining hall. I'll–"
Anavha threw up his breakfast.
Mays rushed in. Just as he reached Anavha, Anavha bolted past him, still dry heaving. Mays slipped in the vomit, swore.
Anavha knew where the dining hall was.
|
(Worldbreaker Saga 2) The Empire Ascendant
|
Kameron Hurley
|
[
"fantasy",
"LGBT",
"science fiction fantasy"
] |
[] |
Chapter 34
|
Saradyn, the big fat man, came to her when the stump of her left hand was nearly healed. The white-frocked shit face of a "doctor" was happy to care for her wounds now that he had inflicted them. She gleefully bit off the tip of his nose during one of his checkups. He sent a younger man the next time, who wore a helmet with a face guard, as if he had come to do battle with her.
But when Saradyn finally came to see her – after how many weeks? – he brought only his dogs, two ugly runty dogs that stank terribly.
The room they put her in was something like a dining hall, a piss-poor place for an interrogation, if that's what this was.
Saradyn pulled up a chair at the table across from her. It was a vast table, and could seat over thirty people. They sat at the middle, leaving a broad length of the knotty table between them. One of the dogs came up and sniffed at her. She kicked it. It whined.
Saradyn called the dog back.
"You speak real Dorinah?" Zezili asked, "Or are you too fucking stupid for it? Everyone in this country is a fucking stupid butcher. Is that all you can do? Shit in buckets and–"
Saradyn gestured to one of his men, some little one that Zezili hadn't seen before. He held a large book. He dipped his head at Saradyn a few times, then once at her, as if he wasn't sure how to greet her. It felt like some absurd parody. She flexed the phantom of her left hand.
"King Saradyn of Lind," the man said, in passable Dorinah, "Laine's Fist of–"
"Oh, get the fuck on with it," Zezili said.
The man said something to Saradyn in Tordinian.
Saradyn spoke, not to him, but to her. He had a deep voice and odd eyes, hazel, maybe, yellow-brown. His thick, black hair fell into his face. He paused once to push it aside and stroke at his beard, as if from long habit.
His translator said, "King Saradyn wants to know why you brought a force into Tordin, and whether or not this is the Empress's command, or yours."
"I'm a rogue," Zezili said. "Look at my face." She leaned forward, sneering at him.
The translator prattled on.
Zezili leaned back, watching Saradyn's face. Hard to believe this was the King the Empress once fucked. They said it's why he thought so highly of himself. She had come down for Penelodyn's body. He was nothing back then, just some petty lord that amused her, but he took the fucking to mean something it hadn't. A lot of people around him had, too, and this is what it made him. Some mad, petty tyrant thinking he had tamed a woman who fucked anyone she fancied because she could.
"I heard you gave up your own family after she fucked you," Zezili said. "I heard you murdered them in your bed because you heard voices, saw things, after she touched you. Women drive you mad? Is that why you had them cut my hand off? Because if that's the worst you can think of, you're a fucking fool."
Saradyn glanced at the translator, whose expression was pained. They argued for a few minutes before Saradyn appeared to peel the translation out of him. Zezili could tell it was mostly accurate because Saradyn's expression darkened. He made a retort.
"You forget that we have your husband," the translator said.
"I've heard that, but I haven't seen him. You chop something off him too? You can't break me, you old fool. I've survived worse than you."
Call and response. He said, "We'll be happy to bring him in here and cut strips off him for every further question you refuse to answer."
She grimaced, sat back. "Why should one more dead man matter to me?"
"Because you have come a good long distance to find him, have you not?"
"I don't go mad over a good fuck the way you do."
A pause. Smattering of words. Then, "Perhaps we can come to a more amicable agreement."
"We can," Zezili said, and for the first time in weeks she found the long thread of her advantage. She was not a clever person. She preferred brute force. But she had not come here to do the Empress's bidding. She had come here to thwart her. And if she was killed here in this little dining hall, then she was dead for nothing, and the Empress would get away with what she'd done to her, and the dajians, and the whole bloody country. It went on and on. Death without revenge was just death.
"If I tell you what she's here to do," Zezili said, "you release me and Anavha. You can wait until you verify the story, that's fine. But you release us."
"Of course."
His warm, bright eyes met hers as he said the equivalent in Tordinian. He even smiled, like a playful predator. A lie, she knew. She had been on the other side of the table enough times to know it was a lie. She and Anavha would both die, tortured and buried in some anonymous grave, because they were too uncivilized to burn their dead. She hoped only he would bury them together.
"She's sent us to uncover some secret of hers, some weapon she buried out here," Zezili said. "I came here because I fucking hate her. You understand what that's like, don't you? I could have said no, fucked off into my little life. But Anavha was gone, and half the dajians in the country were dead, and I knew I was going to be next, people like me. She was powerful as ever. I don't know the exact location or what it is, but it's north east of here, hidden in some anomaly on the map. A ring of mountains? Something like that. That's where Storm, the other legion commander, is taking them."
"So there's no other army coming?"
"Not that I know about."
"And there is another legion commander. Your force still has a leader?"
"The Empress doesn't mind redundancies. She needs them, with the kind of place this is."
Saradyn watched her in silence for some time. He steepled his fingers. It took a great deal of will not to look away, but she refused to be first. Fuck him.
"You'll go back to your army," the translator said once Saradyn broke his silence. "But you'll take two of our people. We want you embedded with the army again."
Zezili thought a long moment. "What's to keep me from killing your two men?"
Saradyn laughed, and the translator interpreted his next words, "You have one useless hand. We have the other. You could bite them to death, of course. I'll be sure to tell them to cover their faces, like Saiduan children." Saradyn laughed the whole time the translator said this, as if the entire idea was the funniest thing he'd ever heard.
Heat bloomed on Zezili's face. Is that what they thought of her now? They thought her impotent. She wanted to tell them she wasn't so easily hobbled, but thought better of it. This was her only way to leave this shithole instead of being buried in it. Buried in the dirt, like refuse.
"I want to see my husband," Zezili said.
Saradyn stood, said something to the translator, and whistled at the dogs.
The translator bowed his head. "We will return with your husband, of course," he said. He left her there in the massive room with only two men at the doors on the other side of it for company.
She wanted to seethe, but she had been testing her bonds during the interview, and already worked her stump loose. It was difficult to secure someone with just one hand. She twisted her other hand free, but kept both behind her, looking for some kind of weapon.
Directly across from her was a huge hearth, big enough to stand in. Inside were two iron prongs for setting a roasting hunk of meat, and a skewer at the center fixed with curved metal tongs to hold the meat. Beside it was a metal container and what looked like a couple of fire pokers. She glanced again at the guards. Flexed her bad right hand. The remaining fingers barely curled into her fist. How to pick it up, and once she held it, keep hold of it while bashing someone in the face?
She yelled at the guards. "Hey! Hey!"
They ignored her, and it occurred to her that they wouldn't be able to speak Dorinah. She could yell at them a lot, make a fuss, but they weren't going to come over. She assessed their weapons. Swords and daggers. No ranged weapons.
Zezili rocked once in her chair. She steeled herself for a painful fall, then threw the chair over onto her right side. Pain jolted up her arm.
The guards came running. She stayed down until they were nearly on top of her, then crawled swiftly under the table, kicking the chair back at them.
She heaved herself onto the table and came right up on top of the nearest guard before his sword was out of its sheath. She headbutted him in the face so hard she saw a bank of static blur across her vision. She hooked the thumb and pointer finger of her right hand under the hilt of his sword and yanked it out the rest of the way. She braced it against her stomach, knowing her hand could not provide the needed pressure, and leaned into the chest of the second guard just as he brought up his dagger.
They both slammed into the ground. The hilt of the sword jammed badly into her ribs. She used the stump of her other hand to help get leverage on the hilt and pulled the sword out. The first guard was still hunched over, blood gushing down his face from his shattered nose. She kicked his legs out from under him.
He fell. Punched her hard. Her head whipped back. She headbutted him again.
He howled.
They flailed on the floor in a tangle of limbs and blood. She got the sword flat against his neck. She pressed a knee on either side of the sword, balancing herself on her toes, her ass on his chest, using her body weight to strangle him.
He kicked. She drooled in his bloody face.
Her right hand ached. She stared into his face, some fat bearded face, and she imagined Storm's face there, and she pressed harder, because she would have to kill Storm too, she would have to kill them all if she was going to stop whatever this all was, whatever dark thing the Empress had planned for the Dhai, for the Dorinah, for the Tai Mora, for the world.
The guard kicked one last time. He went limp, his tongue lolling from his mouth.
She continued sitting over him, panting, for a full minute. The edges of the blade had bit into the bottom of his throat, making a red line. His face was bug-eyed, the eyes reddened. He was starved of oxygen, his windpipe crushed. The other man was bleeding out from the belly wound six paces away. She didn't care to bother with him.
Zezili was trembling. She crawled to her feet, steadying herself on the table. There was no way out of here that wasn't walking out the front door, and to do that... She stared at the dead man. Both men wore helms; though they didn't cover their faces – making them terribly vulnerable to headbutting – it might get her out the door.
It so happened she knew a certain doctor who had a far better helmet for her purposes, and she knew where to find him. Without her left hand, she had no way to knot a weapon to her right. They didn't leave her with a lot of options. She glanced over at the fireplace again, and the roasting spit at its center with the iron teeth on it. What was the stump of her left arm now, but a hunk of meat?
She put her left arm on the spit and painfully twisted the tongs to tighten them, so the metal closed over the top of her arm like teeth. It was heavy, and cumbersome, but she wasn't going out into that hall without a weapon.
Zezili pulled on the padded leather armor of one of the dead men, sweating and swearing as she did it. How long did she have? Two minutes? Thirty?
She put the padded armor over her head without tightening it. All she needed was the padded bit over her chest where she could rest the blunt end of the spit. If she held her left arm low and tight next to her side, the spit turned to her chest, she could use the armor to leverage a good thrust.
Zezili strode to the doors, bleeding pain with every step. Her vision still swam. Her face ached from smashing the man's nose, and her phantom fingers hurt twice as bad, as if someone had mashed the whole hand under a boot.
As she stepped up to the door, she heard footsteps in the hall – too few for an army of guards. Maybe she still had a chance. She braced her weapon, caught the door with her working fingers, and threw it open. Lunged forward.
A young man ran headlong into her, body thumping directly into the spitted weapon. The weight of him sent her reeling back. She landed with a huff on the floor, the man on top of her. She smacked her head on the stone. Her stump thumped into his body, preventing him from sliding all the way to her shoulder, launched there with the weight of his own momentum.
The breath left her body, knocked cleanly out of her. She tried to roll clear. He moved first, pushing himself up on his hands. His dark hair hung into his face. Blood bloomed across his tunic.
Zezili thought she was dreaming. The square jaw, hollowed cheekbones, the delicate face and features – she knew him, knew him like she knew the hand she had lost.
But she could not say his name.
Anavha rolled off her, grabbing at the bloody hole in his chest.
Zezili gasped for breath and clawed toward him. She pushed her right hand under his head, pulled him close to her, and stared down at him with wonderment.
His mouth moved.
"Ah, my love," Zezili said.
More footsteps, a gaggle of men, led by Natanial Thorne.
Zezili bared her teeth. "Don't you touch him," she said. "He's mine."
Natanial punched her square in the face.
|
(Worldbreaker Saga 2) The Empire Ascendant
|
Kameron Hurley
|
[
"fantasy",
"LGBT",
"science fiction fantasy"
] |
[] |
Chapter 35
|
The stargazers were both men, slender and supple as reeds with words sweet as honey and opaque as molasses. Kirana drummed her fingers on her campaign table while they droned on about probability and the proposed speed of different types of light. Another week of war, hounding the Dorinahs to the sea, and the biting ulcer in her stomach was flaring up again, like some hungry animal. The stargazers' avoidance of her question was not helping her mood. She made camp inside some petty Dorinah lord's estate, hosting her stargazers through a rip in the fabric of the world right there in the lord's former entertaining room.
Decadent furniture carved with fanciful living shapes – wild flowers, vines, and belled faces of pitcher plants – clashed with the blood smearing the table, and her boots. She had the lord's table taken out and her campaign table put in. She did not sit at it, as the furniture in Dorinah was all too low, as if they liked to kiss the floor and the creatures on it. So she stood, impatient, while the blood of the household fueled this useless conversation.
"Six people died to get this wink open," she said. "Tell me how many worlds have entered the field of battle? It's a simple question."
"As we've tried to explain–" The elder, a bearded fellow called Suari, made a broad, expansive gesture with one hand, which she recognized as the prelude to another circular lecture. He had blue tattoos winding up his arms, twin mermen with forked tails and giant fangs. She once asked him if they were a relation, and he had asked if it was a serious question.
She addressed the younger instead. "Masis, tell me what he won't."
Masis eyed Suari a long moment, stroking his scraggly beard. Young men trying in vain to grow spotty beards put her in mind of molting young birds playing at being adults. He cleared his throat. "As we've discussed, there is no way to accurately determine how many worlds may gain access during Oma's rise," he said. "I can tell you no world is fool enough to cross over into ours, at least that we've determined. It seems quite clear our world is one of the many that will not survive this latest rise of Oma. But our preliminary theories suggest that the closer a world is to the prime – the world where the break initially occurred, making this travel possible – the softer and more sensitive it will be to travel from other realms, allowing the mixing and merging of people fleeing catastrophes on other worlds."
"Plain language," Kirana said.
Masis said, "Because it's easier to get to the world you're on, now the one where the primary break occurred, it's statistically more likely to be the world more people will travel to as the worlds come closer together."
"So we could have hundreds of worlds invading this one right now? I could have dozens of usurpers take everything I've gained here?"
Suari turned up his nose, though she suspected it was an unconscious gesture. She was well aware of what he thought of her – daughter to a cobbler, murderer of half the world. "We are stargazers, Kai, not priests."
Masis said, "There could be any number of adjacent realities pushing into your sphere right now. It will only get worse when Oma rises. The fact that you have identified others is a bold sign, though – it means Oma's rise is very close."
"How close?" Kirana said.
"Weeks," Masis said. "Perhaps a month or two, at maximum."
"And that means travel without blood," Suari said. "So perhaps next time you could spare the six."
"It's six fewer left here to till your garden when you arrive, that's all," Kirana said. That made them both stand a little straighter. They all yearned to cross over. The toxic sky was getting worse. She had no equipment here, no safe observatory, to put them in, not until she had taken Dhai and its temples. And if she failed to close the rifts from the temples… she, too, could be overrun by some other world.
She said, "Do you have recommendations on sealing these soft areas where the other worlds are getting people through? Something we can do before we crack Dhai?"
"Only what we told you before," Suari said. "Until the machines that caused the initial break are engaged to seal it, or Oma leaves the sky – which could be twenty years or more – you will see visitations from other worlds. Perhaps twenty. Perhaps thousands."
"Why is it you never give me comforting news?"
"As I said–" Suari began.
"You're not priests." Kirana waved a hand at them. "Go, then. Get back to observing that cancer speeding across our sky. I've not given up on a solution for that."
Suari's eyes widened, but Masis just nodded. Did they think she had killed too many to go back? But killing was wearying, and she knew exactly how much more she had to do before this was all over, and Yisaoh could cross over, and they could build a real life here.
"Tell the minder to fetch Yisaoh," she said, "if she isn't engaged in something else."
The stargazers nodded and moved out of the frame. The wink looked out onto a shadowy green wall lit with smoky outlines of people. Kirana had moved her entire army closer to the equator, as the poison from the sky was worse the closer one went to the poles. The northern continent she'd murdered with plague was uninhabitable now, as were the great glass cities of the only empire that had held out against hers. They'd negotiated an uneasy peace five years before. The people of the glass cities told her their gods would save them. So when death rained from the sky, its people went out into the streets and raised their hands to it, and died there. Millions dead. Such a waste of blood.
This outpost with the green walls and shadowy memories of death belonged to a people called the Azorum who had made the most beautiful green stone temples and public buildings. They were not a warring people, and they had come out to meet her army with open palms and warm smiles and she had cast great waves of fire into their sprawling cities so powerful the blast of it seared the outlines of their terrified bodies against those same walls.
Kirana supposed they would have painted over them, in time, but they did not intend to stay in the cities of the Azorum. The band of civilizations moving to the equator where the effect of the dying satellite wasn't as toxic would wither and die soon enough.
Yisaoh moved into the frame of the wink, sitting just in front of the shadowy outline on the wall. Her hollowed face was made more cavernous as the long shadows of the evening began to creep across the room.
"The stargazers tell us we're about out of time," Kirana said.
"I remember the first time you told me that."
"It convinced your mothers," Kirana said. "They wouldn't have given permission for us to wed if I hadn't told them the world was ending."
"You have a persuasive way about you." Yisaoh smiled a mirthless smile; lips making the motions. Her eyes remained shadowed. She held her hands in her lap, tightly. She only did that when she had too much to say and a fear of saying it.
"The other worlds are here," Kirana said. It hurt to say. Her throat closed, as if she tried to swallow a stone.
"How many?"
"We don't know. We're turning away from assaulting Dorinah and going straight to Dhai, now. We don't have time to make a foothold here. If we don't begin the process of closing the seams between the worlds, we could be overrun by some other force."
"Without doing the spring planting in Dorinah, you'll be lost come summer. Many crops will already be in, but who will tend them? You said you needed Dorinah before Dhai, or we could not support ourselves there."
"I know. But I have a boon."
Yisaoh waited, brows raised.
"Navaa is here. Her double. We found her in some lodging near the crossover point. That's a bit of luck, isn't it?"
"Luck?"
Kirana leaned forward. "There is luck still, Yisaoh."
Yisaoh's lower lip trembled. Kirana put her hand through the gap in the world, though there was always a fear, a danger that it would snap shut and take her limb with it. Yisaoh gripped her hand, hard. Her skin was cold to the touch, like a corpse. But the air around her was very warm.
"Luck," Kirana said.
"Luck," Yisaoh whispered.
"I will take the wall of Liona. We'll take Dhai and its temples and stop the encroachment of the others. This is our world now. We'll find your shadow. It's only a matter of time. I promised, Yisaoh."
"So many promises," Yisaoh said. She pressed Kirana's hand to her face. Put her other hand up to the invisible wall between them, until it met resistance. Her double's existence, pushing back at her.
"And I've kept them. For you, I've kept them."
A knock at the door. A voice outside the frame of the wink. "Twenty minutes, before it closes, Consort."
Kirana squeezed Yisaoh's hand. "Soon," she said. "Will you bring the children in?"
"Yes," Yisaoh said. "They've been asking for you."
Yisaoh moved outside the reach of the wink. Kirana heard a door close. Low voices. She waited patiently.
The children came in ahead of Yisaoh: tall, leggy Moira, already twelve; curly haired Corina, ten; and little Tasia, her youngest, six.
"Can we visit now?" Tasia said.
Kirana said, "We're getting things well prepared for you. I don't want to bring you over until I have everything ready."
"Mother isn't coming," Moira said. Cool. Matter-of-fact. Kirana saw much of herself in her, though they were not her blood children. Moira and Tasia were her dead cousin's, and Corina was Yisaoh's. She and Yisaoh had raised all three since they were infants. Kirana still remembered coming home from delivering the plague-ridden goods to the docks and finding Moira toddling out to greet her. Kirana had been gone so long she had no idea she was already walking.
"I'll follow after," Yisaoh said.
"Mam," Tasia said to Kirana, "Mother says the sky isn't rotten there."
"That's right. We'll all be together soon." She thought to promise it again, but after her conversation with Yisaoh, promises tasted bad. No more promises. Action.
"Kai?" the voice of the sinajista on the other side again. "Consort, the wink's becoming unstable."
"Love to you," Kirana said. "When you arrive you'll have a big house, and rooms all to yourselves. What do you think of that?"
"It's hot here," Tasia said.
Moira folded her arms, frowned. "It better not be as hot," she said.
Kirana restrained her annoyance. Oh, to be twelve. "It's not as hot," she assured her. "The wink's going out. You take care of your mother."
"I love you, Mam!" Corina burst out, spreading her arms wide.
The wink wavered, like ripples on a pool of water.
"I love–"
The wink closed.
Kirana stared hard at the other side of the blood-smeared house, now a blank wall.
One of her sinajistas knocked, opened the door. "Kai…"
"I know," Kirana said. She hated that they knew her weakness. Did caring for Yisaoh make her stronger, or weaker, in their eyes? But they all cared for someone still on the other side. If she shared their motivation, didn't that make her more like them? Make her more trustworthy?
"We march west tomorrow," Kirana said. "Time is short."
"It's been relayed. And the force approaching from the east?"
"Not our concern. Let the Dorinahs deal with them. I want to concentrate our forces on Liona. We're taking Dhai."
"Yes, Kai."
Kirana stood over her table. The lines were blurry, the map a fuzzy nonsense thing. Teardrops on the map. She wiped her face. Foolish. Tears saved no one. A decade-long campaign was about to end. She needed to stay focused here at the very end. The end of everything, and the beginning, too. Her beginning. Their beginning. A renewal.
"Kai?"
Lohin's mewling voice. She called him in.
"I've heard we have a new destination," he said.
"Correct."
"With Navaa in our custody, we could breach the walls of Dorinah in a week and–"
"How long have you known of the second force?"
"The… second force, Kai?"
"The one coming from the east? The Osadainans. A people we already thoroughly destroyed."
"I… it was purely speculative. I needed to confirm…"
"Do you think this is a joke, Lohin?"
"I… no? No, this is life or–"
"Not just your life. Or my life. But the lives of our entire people. How many times have our people fled destruction, looking for the prime world, the first world, the one with the power to stop the transitions, the apocalypse?"
"Quite some time…"
"We've tried to find this world for four thousand years," Kirana said. "Four thousand. How many Kais is that?"
"Quite a number."
"Yes. Four thousand years. And we've found it. And now you're fucking around. You're fucking this, Lohin. Fucking it terribly."
"Kai, I apologize, I was just–"
"Send Madah in here."
"Madah?"
"Do it."
He bowed once, twice, bowed as he scooted out the door, backing away from her. She waited, drumming her fingers on the map, thinking of Yisaoh's cold skin. How much longer?
Madah entered, tall and slim, young, fierce. She carried herself like someone born far better, someone of Kirana's station, but Kirana liked that just fine. Lohin squirreled in behind her, pinched little face taut, gaze downcast.
"Madah," Kirana said. "I want you to take Lohin's place. You understand?"
"Yes, Kai." Madah sketched a bow.
Lohin started. "But Kai, what do you want–"
"I want you to stay here in Dorinah and relay intelligence to me about what's happening. All right?"
"But, if hostilities are moving to Dhai–"
"You will not be needed in Dhai. We march to the wall in the morning, Madah. You are both dismissed."
Madah left.
Lohin lingered, crouching in the doorway. "Kai, please, without the army… I'm… they'll think I'm a slave. There is very little–"
"Then you must use your wits."
"Kai–"
"I have no time for baggage, Lohin. No time for bear shit, or regrets. Go."
He made a sound like a cat in distress.
They marched at dawn for Liona.
|
(Worldbreaker Saga 2) The Empire Ascendant
|
Kameron Hurley
|
[
"fantasy",
"LGBT",
"science fiction fantasy"
] |
[] |
Chapter 36
|
Ahkio kicked at the confines of his cell – and a cell was what it was, though none were supposed to exist in the temple. In his naivety he'd assumed Nasaka had cleared a storage room for Almeysia, but no, this was very clearly a cell, the like of which he'd only read about in bad Dorinah romances and references in The Book of Oma.
Liaro had not come down with him, but it was still his name Ahkio yelled inside the black cell. He shouted himself hoarse. It wasn't until he kicked a bucket in one corner, sending it clattering across the little eight foot by eight foot space, that the gravity of the situation came over him. He pressed himself against the floor, right up to the little sliver of air that crept in from under the door, and cried one final time, "Nasaka!"
"She won't come."
The voice was faint, and familiar.
"Who's that?"
"Don't tell me you don't know?"
He heard another sound, a faint cry that sounded like a cat, or, absurdly, an infant.
"Who is that?"
"It's Meyna, Ahkio."
The cold from the floor seeped into his bones. His cheek felt numb. But he squeezed against the seam of the door anyway, pressing his face as close as he could to try and see into the hall.
The cry came again. Then the sound of Meyna murmuring.
"Nasaka put you here?" Ahkio said. As if he needed the answer.
"She came for me after you left," she said.
"What did she want from you?"
Silence. The fussing cry. Ahkio closed his eyes. Her baby, the one she had been so close to having last summer when he exiled her, growing up in this prison in the guts of the temple while he ran around upstairs, arguing with Nasaka.
"This is a poor way to speak," she said. "I'm coming over."
"How will–"
He heard a scraping sound. Footsteps.
Meyna's eye appeared on the other side of the crack beneath the door, wide and bold. He stared at her, speechless. Heard the amusement in her voice.
"The hinges are on the inside," she said. "This isn't a proper prison. We don't have any. I busted out the hinges weeks ago from the inside, using the refuse bucket."
"How are you still here?"
"The other door is locked, the one to the hall. Hinges on the outside. I've been up and down this whole corridor. It's full of old records. No secret ways out. It would take us an age to tunnel out with our bare hands. A hundred years at least."
"How do I get out?"
"Grab your refuse bucket. I'll talk you through it."
Ahkio followed Meyna's instructions, though it was difficult in the dark. He felt his way around the hinge pins. It took two hours of sweat, a splintered bucket, and no small amount of cursing, but he managed to remove the hinges and haul the door inward.
On the other side, Meyna stood before him, thinner and filthy, her greasy hair bound back with what looked like a torn bit of her tunic. Her mouth was a puckered moue, brows drawn.
"I'm sorry you became a part of this," he said, because he could think of nothing else.
"I chose this," she said, "when I told Kirana I'd look after you. Every bid for power comes with a price, doesn't it?"
The baby wailed.
She sighed heavily.
"Do they send more than one person down to feed you?" he said. "We can overtake one together."
"It used to be Elaiko," she said. "Now it's some other one."
"Pasinu?"
Meyna shrugged. "She didn't share her name."
"If we can–"
"Ahkio, I want a bath and a steaming bowl of curried rice and yams. I want a clean swath of linen and a tunic that doesn't stink. But she sends gifted people down here. If we move on them now and fail, we'll have given our trick away, and then I'll be bound up even more securely, or killed. If they've already brought you down here, I suspect we've reached the final days."
"Final days of what?"
"You haven't figured out Nasaka's plan, have you? Ahkio, what have you been doing all these months?"
"Keeping the country together. She's betrayed us to the Tai Mora. I found out that much."
"She wanted me to bring Etena here. My mother was one of the woodland Dhai who escorted her into exile."
"And you… didn't? You chose to stay?"
"Choice? You're so naïve, Ahkio. She'd have killed my child."
"Rhin and Hadaoh? Mey-Mey?"
"Safe," she said. "Unless you did something to them."
"We need to work together," he said.
"Then let's talk of the present. The past is rotten."
Ahkio stayed awake all night… all day? Time was limitless here. He had no idea how Meyna had stayed sane. She was emotionally stronger than him. It's what drew him to her from the very first.
He must have nodded off at some point, because the scraping open of the door at the end of the corridor started him awake. He crawled to his own door. He had pushed it back into place with the hinges still broken. Meyna said that when they fed her they had to open the door, which is why she had to keep replacing the hinges every night.
Ahkio tensed, listening. The clanging of a key in a lock. His door. He stood and pressed his palms lightly against the door. Waited for the click of the lock, and the give of the door—
He stepped back half a pace and put his shoulder to the door, ramming it with all his strength. The door toppled outward onto the person outside of it. The hall was too narrow, though – the top of the door stuck on the wall opposite. Ahkio rolled under it, swinging his bucket at the figure caught under the door. He smashed the bucket into the figure's face, bursting the nose, before he realized it wasn't Pasinu.
It was Nasaka.
Ahkio tackled her, pinning her to the ground. Meyna pushed her door open, wielding her own bucket. She swung. Ahkio ducked. The bucket narrowly missed his head and swung into Nasaka's face.
Blood spattered Ahkio's face. He sputtered.
"Stop! Meyna!"
She brought the bucket down twice more.
Nasaka's nose was smashed, her left cheekbone clearly crushed. Blood welled from her mouth. She spit two teeth, sputtering more blood into Ahkio's face.
"Meyna, the door!"
Meyna ran to the door to the corridor, pushed it open. "The hallway is clear!"
Ahkio yanked Nasaka up and pushed her into another of the rooms. He found the keys on the floor, smeared with blood. His hands trembled as he fumbled with the keys, finally locking her in.
"It won't hold her," Meyna said.
"I'll send someone down," Ahkio said.
"Who?" Meyna said. "You don't know how many of them are hers. She could have turned them all against you in the night. You could be walking into a trap."
"Ahkio…" Nasaka rasped.
He pressed his hands to his ears. He didn't want to hear it.
"You said Pasinu was the only other one who came down here," he said. "Lock the corridor door behind us. Even if she gets out of the cell, she won't leave the corridor."
"You'll let her die down here?"
"Grab your child," Ahkio said. "I'm closing the door."
Meyna ran back into her cell. Ahkio had expected an infant, but the bundle in her arms was a plump little nine-month-old child, sitting up in her arms, sucking on its fist. The big eyes were Meyna's, the tangle of dark hair, the broad face. It was a relief to see nothing of himself in that face; a child birthed in a prison.
Ahkio urged Meyna into the hall. "Up. We need to get to Pasinu, quickly."
Nasaka's voice, pained, slurred, "Ahkio…"
He slammed the door. Found the key, and twisted the lock. He wiped the blood from his face and forged ahead.
"You know where Pasinu is?" Meyna said. "If she's–"
"Let me think."
"You've gotten mouthy."
"You're much the same."
He glanced back. She smirked at him, and he found himself returning the smile, absurdly. He covered his mouth, but a laugh bubbled up inside him, and he could not stop it. He bent over, and laughed so hard he thought he'd retch.
"Are you all right?"
"It's just… The absurdity…"
"Hush. Voices."
He went quiet. He recognized the voices – Una and her assistant, Sabasao.
Meyna whispered, "Are we going to fight them too?"
"No," he said. He straightened and pushed forward boldly into the hall.
Una and her assistant rounded the corner, and came up short. Una's mouth hung open. "Ahkio? Kai? This is…"
"Surprising, I'm sure," he said. "You're exiled. Sabasao, you're gatekeeper of Oma's Temple."
"This is a mistake," Una said. "Ora Nasaka–"
"Is no longer with us," Ahkio said. "Get out. Meyna?"
Meyna came up behind him. The child clung to her hair.
"Oh," Una said.
"Oh?" Ahkio said. "Is that all you have to say for yourself? Go forward, Una. Sabasao, you need to choose a side right now. The one that locks up Dhai children in the temple basements, or the one that frees them. Which do you choose?"
Una started gabbling.
Sabasao was a young man, not much older than Ahkio. "It's time, then," he said. "Kai, there are so many sworn to Ora Nasaka that–"
"She's dead," Ahkio lied. "So there are fewer options."
"I need a bath," Meyna said. "Curried yams. Remember?"
"Could you give me a moment?"
"Yams."
Sabasao nodded. "Up we go, then. I can tell you who you have, but it's not many."
"Fool child," Una muttered.
Una's star was in decline, but he didn't think she was as far gone as Nasaka. If she tried something now, she had no one to blame it on but herself. If had learned one thing in all this time trying to rule Dhai, it was that what people really wanted was to rally around a strong leader.
They pushed upstairs and into the foyer. Ahkio led Una out the front doors and yelled for a stir of militia. He found eight of them, and for one tense moment, he worried Nasaka had gotten to them first. But they were Ghrasia's still. Bold, loyal, Ghrasia.
"Three of you need to escort Una out of Dhai," he said, "to Liona. The rest need to go upstairs and contain Pasinu, Nasaka's assistant."
"I'll warn you, Kai," one of the militia said. "She has Oras up there."
"So do I," Ahkio said. "Let's head up. Meyna–"
She was already forging toward the kitchens, baby hitched on her hip. "Yams and a bath, Ahkio."
He headed upstairs. The militia followed. They found Pasinu in Nasaka's study, standing on a ladder, shelving books. Ahkio yanked the ladder out from under her. She fell hard.
"Bind her and drug her," he said.
"Kai," she said. "Kai, what is–"
"You know very well," he said. "Where's Liaro?"
But she did not know. Ahkio took the stairs two at a time. He went all the way to the top, strode across the Assembly Chamber, and found Liaro passed out in the bed in the Kai's quarters. He ripped open the curtains.
Liaro raised his head, bleary-eyed.
"Get out," Ahkio said.
"Ahkio!" Liaro rubbed his eyes. "Ahkio, this is bad business."
"Meyna was in the basements. With her baby. What was Nasaka going to do with me, Liaro? What else did she have planned?"
"Where is she?"
"Dead," he lied again, and the lie was getting easier.
"She ordered all the parajistas back from Kuallina. She wants everyone back in the temples."
"She'd prefer we died at Kuallina. How many civilians dead, to ensure–"
"You don't understand. She told me–"
"What lies did she tell you, Liaro?"
"Please, I'm–"
"Hung over? Still drunk. Get out of this bed, out of this country–"
Liaro crawled out of bed. He reached for Ahkio's hands.
Ahkio pulled away. "Get out, or I'll have the militia throw you out."
Liaro dressed, tears falling freely. Ahkio didn't want to understand Liaro's betrayal. He just wanted it over. He followed Liaro out, down the stairs, cutting him off every time he tried to speak. At the big double doors, Liaro tried to plead his case one last time.
"You're the love of my life, Ahkio," Liaro said. "What I did I did to protect you. I thought it was right."
"Goodbye, Liaro." He ushered him out the door. Closed it.
Soruza crossed the foyer to him. "Ahkio, I've heard some terrible news about Ora Nasaka–"
"Recall your orders for the parajistas," he said. "Ora Nasaka wasn't working on my order. She's dead. Whatever you thought you were doing for this country, it was most likely treason. So I suggest turning things around. Recall them."
"Yes, Kai, but Ora Nasaka said–"
"I don't give a care for what she said. If it's not been clear to you until now, Nasaka is a traitor to this country. She's been aligned with the Tai Mora all this time. Every order she gave you was in service to them. Those parajistas need to be in Kuallina."
"I'm sorry, Kai. I… didn't know."
Hadn't she? Ahkio honestly had no idea. "I need another note sent to the Temple of Para," he said. "To Caisa Arianao Raona. Tell her to meet me in Kuallina. Take the Lift."
"But you just–"
"I've changed my mind. You'll find that changing one's mind in the face of new information is wise."
"Yes, Kai."
"Can I trust you to hold this temple until I return?" So far as he knew, there was no other power vying for attention in the temple. With Nasaka locked up, they had few options. It was follow him or descend into chaos. He wouldn't blame them for choosing chaos.
"I will, Kai."
He inquired in the kitchens, and was directed downstairs to the bathing chamber where Meyna was submerged, scrubbing her hair with everpine while a gaggle of novices played with her child. It was strange to watch. The novices were so unconcerned, completely ignorant of the shift in power going on above them.
Ahkio squatted next to her.
Meyna rolled her eyes up at him. "Put your things in order?"
"I'm going to Kuallina. The harbor has fallen. The Tai Mora."
"Tai Mora?"
"Have someone catch you up," he said.
"You'll do just fine," she said.
"I just said–"
"I'm going with you to Kuallina," she said. "The way by Lift is hours. We'll have time to catch up."
"That sounds like a terrible idea."
"Does it?" She ducked under the water, rinsing out her cloud of dark hair. Surfaced. "If there's one person up here you can be sure isn't on Ora Nasaka's side, it's me, isn't it?"
"You hate me as much."
"Not quite as much," she said.
"The baby–"
"Every Kai led with a baby at her hip. There's a long tradition. You could, too."
"This game again?"
She laughed. It sounded genuine. She came to the edge of the pool, whispered, "Kai Ahkio, what better way to shore up your position here than with a baby of your own on your hip? You are a childless man, still. With me and your baby, you give people hope. A future. Have you considered that?"
"You're a scheming Mutao, just as Nasaka said."
"I'm right, though, aren't I?"
She was right. He chewed his lip. Liaro gone. Mohrai pregnant, but was she still alive in Kuallina.
He gazed into Meyna's dark eyes and read mirth there. She was still one of the smartest people he knew, and unlike Nasaka, he knew her motives. Her final move. If he gave it to her, she had no reason to fight him.
"Will you marry me, Ahkio?"
"You and Rhin and Hadaoh?"
She shrugged. "The more the merrier? They are in the Woodland. We can address that issue when we get there."
The child shrieked with laughter. He glanced over at the grinning novices carrying it about in their arms.
"Is the child gifted?"
"It's Nasaka's grandchild," Meyna said. "I suspect it will be."
"One who can bear children, or cursed like me?"
"All signs say it will bear children," she said. Meyna had not gendered Mey-mey until she was a year and a half old, when Mey-mey started applying a gender to herself.
He held out a hand and helped her out of the bath. She was gloriously naked, but he handed her a towel quickly, to keep from thinking of it. "So you've decided to invest in me, finally," he said. "What changed your mind?"
"I was in prison for almost a year," she said. "It gave me time to think."
They married in the Sanctuary, a hasty ceremony that earned him strange looks from more than one Ora. The faces of the Oras were different: Almeysia and Una gone, Gaiso dead, Nasaka shuttered up downstairs. Only Masura was familiar, and it was she and Soruza who held the ceremony. By all laws it was an illegal pairing; Mohrai, Rhin and Hadaoh had to sign all the appropriate documents, agreeing to the match. But Ahkio wanted symbolism. He wanted continuity.
Most of all, he needed to hold up Meyna's child in the light streaming in from the dome above, colored red in the light of Oma's visage, and declare it the Li Kai, his successor.
He had three dozen witnesses to it. The child squalled at him. He held it tight, gazing into the mirror of Meyna's eyes, and mourned for Kirana, and the line of Kais that could have been.
Meyna had not expected this part. He saw it in her face.
When he returned the child to her arms, he leaned over, whispered. "I know you want to come to Kuallina. But if I die there, something needs to continue. Do you understand?"
"I'll hold the temple," she said.
He withdrew.
Friends. Enemies. It was all blurring together now.
He got onto the Lift to Kuallina, into an uncertain future.
|
(Worldbreaker Saga 2) The Empire Ascendant
|
Kameron Hurley
|
[
"fantasy",
"LGBT",
"science fiction fantasy"
] |
[] |
Chapter 37
|
Ghrasia was on the wall of Liona when the Tai Mora army arrived. Scouts brought word just ahead of their arrival. She had just enough time to beg for a dozen jistas from the Temple of Para. Only five arrived ahead of the army.
News had already reached her about the fall of the harbor, and the forces headed toward Kuallina. She had sent half her army to Kuallina to shore it up, not anticipating a second Tai Mora army at her gates. Her strategy and tactics classes taught her not to fight a war on two fronts and not to divide one's forces, but with an army as massive as that of the Tai Mora, their sheer numbers defied standard rules of engagement.
When she gazed over the great wall of Liona, it did not surprise her to see her daughter Madah there at the head of the Tai Mora army, swinging a great weapon from her perch atop a low rise where she addressed the long lines of blue-clad parajistas.
She would know her anywhere – the long lean lines of her, the hatchet of a face, the heavy brow she shared with one of her fathers. When Ghrasia went home to wash and prepare her body for the funerary feast, she had looked terribly peaceful in repose, far more peaceful than she had in life.
Madah was a fighter – angry, violent. Ghrasia had kept her out of trouble by pulling a lot of political favors, and Nasaka kept that hanging over Ghrasia. Nasaka had covered up the violence, and even one accidental death. It seemed appropriate that it was she who led the army to the gates of Liona, to burn down her mother's wall with a force of parajistas so large Ghrasia had no hope of pushing them back. The parajistas on the wall with her were already sweating, holding a great wall of air around Liona, but it would not last.
Ghrasia stayed on the wall for the first onslaught from the foreign army that clogged the pass for as far as she could see, far greater than any number of refugees or legionnaires.
The wall shook so hard under the offensive that Ghrasia lost her feet.
She did not stay for the second volley.
Ghrasia strode purposefully downstairs. She felt oddly calm. The little feral girl met her as she rounded the corridor leading to her study, and sniffed at her hand as she passed, then trailed after her.
She found Arasia two doors down, yelling at a group of militia.
"Get the militia off the wall," Ghrasia said. "When the wall falls, we'll be caught in it. Regroup on the other side."
"We'll hold Liona," Arasia said.
"We won't," Ghrasia said. "But we can slow them down. Abandon the wall and regroup outside of it. They'll have to get over the rubble of the wall, and that will give us an advantage with archers and jistas."
"It won't fall," Arasia said.
The hold shook again. Ghrasia caught herself against the wall.
Arasia put out both hands. Two of the militia fell. "All right!" Arasia said. She rounded on the militia. "You heard her! Relay the order!"
Ghrasia paused at the door to her study and stared at the big tapestry of Faith Ahya crossing over the pass into what would become Dhai. She wondered who would come out the hero of this moment.
She moved downstairs, yelling the retreat as she went, and the great fortress trembled and shivered beneath her. One hallway fell in behind her as she went, trapping those who came after. She stayed long enough to huff out a few blocks before she realized it was a lost cause, and then she was moving again, trying to drown out their cries with distance.
Heroes.
Ghrasia made it into the courtyard, falling into a mass of militia and civilian support staff streaming for the relative safety of the woods. She made her way there, calling for Arasia, rallying the confused militia.
She climbed atop a broad tree, its leaves still unfurling in the low spring season, and called at them, "The wall of Liona will fall! When it does you will hold them here. You will delay them to give Kuallina time to muster her defenses. You knew this day would come. Some must fight so others may live peacefully. You are the ones Oma chose to fight. Fight well. Die better."
She slipped down from the tree. "May I take your arm, Arasia?"
"Of course," Arasia said, and linked her thick arm with Ghrasia's slender one. She towered over Ghrasia. Ghrasia patted her shoulder.
"You have the line here," Ghrasia said.
"You–"
"I will be on the wall," Ghrasia said. "I won't let those parajistas die alone."
"Ghrasia, this is–"
"Hold here," Ghrasia said. "This Tai Mora army will crash into Kuallina from the east, and their other army from the harbor will hammer Kuallina from the north. They'll catch them in that fist and crush them hard. You understand?"
"Last stand."
"This is ours."
Arasia nodded.
Ghrasia marched back into the hold. The feral girl found her again as she crossed the courtyard, and Ghrasia yelled at her to go back.
"The people who hurt you are coming," she said. "You understand me? You may not speak, but you know what I'm saying, don't you? I will hold them. But you must go."
The feral girl sat on her haunches, head cocked.
"Understand?" Ghrasia said. "We are not all supposed to die here."
The girl gave a jerk of her head, something very like a nod, and scampered back off toward the woods.
Ghrasia let out her breath. Of all of them, that girl deserved to live.
She mounted the steps while the hold roiled around her, climbing up and up, back to the top of the wall.
The parajistas were sweating and trembling. One was already on her knees, vomiting.
Ghrasia asked permission and helped her up. Ghrasia bent, and whispered in her ear, "Hold them. I need you to hold them while we organize the militia. Give me another twenty minutes. Can you do that?"
The woman nodded. She was Ghrasia's age, maybe a little older.
Ghrasia went down the line, asking them each to hold for twenty more minutes, and in twenty minutes she went down the line again, asking for twenty more.
The two men on the end were sobbing, great heaving sobs that Ghrasia felt more than the shaking of Liona.
She went to the edge of the parapet again and gazed down at row upon row of parajistas at the front of the enemy's lines. There must have been sixty or more of them. The fact that her five had lasted nearly three hours was extraordinary.
Another woman had joined Madah on the rise. Ghrasia peered at her as she pulled the great crimson helm from her head. A confident thing to do, in the middle of a battle. It confirmed what Ghrasia already suspected – this was not a true battle, just an exercise, for these people.
The woman raised her head to the wall and stared right at Ghrasia. Though there was a great distance between them, the recognition was as stark and immediate as it had been with Madah.
It was Kirana, Ahkio's sister, former Kai of Dhai. Come to destroy Liona.
Ghrasia had felt little of anything for an hour, just exhaustion. Emotion had drained from her body like pus from a wound.
Now she was angry. Deeply, bone-chillingly angry.
She raised her voice. "Hold your barrier and prepare a second spell," she said. "Prepare a vortex. At my order, drop defenses on the wall and deploy the vortex at the center of the army. Understood?"
Weak calls of acknowledgement.
The parajista nearest her gave her a wide-eyed look.
Ghrasia pressed thumb to forehead. "An honor to stand with you," she said.
"And with you," the parajista said.
Ghrasia leaned over the edge of the wall. "Drop and deploy!" she yelled.
A rush of air filled her ears.
She saw the vortex open up at the center of the great army, just as a blast of air walloped the wall. The shockwave blew her clear across the parapet and over the other side of the wall.
Ghrasia had four seconds to experience the rush of the fall, four seconds to see the wall crumbling down after her, four seconds before her body hit the courtyard, and the wall of Liona buried what was left of her.
|
(Worldbreaker Saga 2) The Empire Ascendant
|
Kameron Hurley
|
[
"fantasy",
"LGBT",
"science fiction fantasy"
] |
[] |
Chapter 38
|
"Is he dead?" Zezili asked. "Fuck you to Rhea's eye, just tell me if he's dead!" She slumped against the wall of the closet they'd thrown her in – in the panic, no one had seemed sure what to do with her – and roared herself hoarse, but no one came for her. They'd ripped the skewer from her arm, and she felt her whole face puffing up from the surprisingly solid hit from Natanial Thorne, the man she intended to murder in his bed.
She huffed herself against the door once, twice – and much to her surprise, it burst open. She tumbled to the stones and scrambled up. She ran past startled servants and one man fondling himself in front of some old painting, looking for an exit. Her body protested mightily, but it could rest when it was dead.
Zezili broke out a side door, past a scattering of chickens, a horrified stable boy, and a young woman cutting up the body of a boar.
She made for the kennels and slammed her right shoulder into a man leading a bear across the yard. He fell. She kicked him so he stayed down and stood on his body to get the leverage she needed to mount the bear.
She slapped the bear with her good hand, keeping her seat entirely by clenching her thighs tight while gritting her teeth hard enough to make her face hurt.
There was shouting behind her. Something zipped past. Arrows, already? The bear plunged down the muddy streets. Waves of civilians scrambled out of her way.
She knew nothing of Tordin, but she knew the sky. She looked up, found the suns, and turned herself north. She rode for hours until the bear frothed at the mouth, its great forked tongue lolling.
She had not heard any signs of pursuit for miles. Zezili came upon a little farm with a dog tied up out front, and exchanged the bear for the dog. The owner appeared on the stoop just as she whistled it forward. She took off again at a lope, following a dirt track she hoped was a road.
Zezili camped that night well off the road in some abandoned barn. It worried her less than the woodland, which was treacherous, more treacherous than anywhere in Dorinah. The vegetation was dense, full of snapping, biting plant life. Her skin burned with dozens of bites.
She pushed herself into a corner of the barn, and the dog curled up next to her. She slept badly, plagued by nightmares. Anavha, beautiful Anavha, bleeding in her arms. If he was dead, what did she have left but revenge? This was the Empress's doing. She kicked awake sometime in the blackest part of the night, and sobbed. Sobbed for the loss of many things – the loss of her legion, her health, her hand, the loss of her dog Dakar, and Anavha. She had spent her life trying to convince the world she was worth something, and in the end, she had nothing.
Zezili slept in the barn for two days, nursing her aching body, living on young plant shoots and dandelions and a hare who made the mistake of coming into the barn within the length of the dog's lead.
Then she rode out – north, stealing what she needed along the way. In a little town four days out she stopped to barter for a map, but found that her reputation had preceded her.
She heard her own name whispered as she got off the dog. So she took what she wanted – with a look and sneer – and used the map and supplies to get her to the spot on the map Storm had given her. The final resting place for the Empress's weapon was nearer than ever.
A week and a half alone on the roads, talking only to her dog and frightened village people, gave her too much time to think, and to dream. But the longer she was on the road, the less she dreamed, and the less far ranging her thoughts. Her focus was a searing brand.
Saradyn and his people were a menace, yes. But it was the Empress who had called her dajian, who had made her dance like a puppet on a string. It was the Empress who had killed Anavha. The Empress who had taken her hand.
And she would destroy everything the Empress wanted her to save. Burn it out as surely as she would a cancerous weed.
When she came within sight of the circle of mountains that marked her final destination, the fist of her drive loosened. She took her time picking out the track the army must have taken. They would have arrived here weeks before, but the trail was still fresh. New plant life curled about the edges of crushed wildflowers.
She followed the broad track around the towering deformity in the ground, that marked her final destination. They were not properly mountains, but some kind of spongy matter, like a single great tree stump that ran for miles along a circular border. She followed the track around the anomaly for half a day before she found the hole.
Masses of dirt were piled up outside the hole. It looked like someone – or something – had tried to burrow under the ridge of the "mountains."
Zezili dismounted. She saw dog and bear tracks, human tracks, too, and further on from the hole, a ragged line of abandoned tents, already curled in little tufts of moss and fast-growing vines.
"Anyone here?" she yelled.
Nothing.
She tied off the dog near the hole and kicked around the abandoned camp. The supplies were all intact. She found packs of dried meat, rice, hard bread, and tubers.
Then she saw the first and only body. A crumpled, partially rotted figure, hunched against a tree. Zezili recognized the armor. It was Jasoi.
Zezili knelt in front of her to inspect the gaping wound in her side. It looked like the bite of some monstrous animal, but if that was so, why hadn't it eaten the rest of her? Wherever the others had gone, they hadn't intended to go long, and yet… She gazed over her shoulder, over at the hole. Shuddered.
She stood. "We're going to eat," she told the dog. "You remember real food?"
The dog whined.
"Me either," Zezili said. She put Jasoi's name onto her very long mental list of the dead. She had killed hundreds of people in her lifetime, but it was her foolishness, her neglect, her poor choices, that murdered most of them.
The weather was warm, but she wanted cooked rice, so she used one of the flint kits to make a fire. She yanked the vines off one of the tents and got it set up properly again. She kicked out a mean little rodent and two snakes. She stepped on the head of the biggest snake and mashed its head in. Rice and snake meat sounded delicious.
She had gotten adept at skinning and gutting animals with her three good fingers and her teeth, and she did it now, throwing together a meal for her and the dog. When they were fed, she lay there with him at the center of the abandoned camp and stared up at the moons. She sucked in a breath of warm air while the insects buzzed around her, snapping and biting, undeterred by the smoke.
It was a good final night.
She woke at dawn covered in dew and dozens of shiny green beetles. They were harmless and beautiful, like being covered in jewels.
With cool resolve, she spent nearly two hours tying a dagger to her left arm with a long string of cord pulled from one of the tents. The stump had healed well enough that she could wrap the cord from the stump around her elbow, so that if she kept her elbow crooked, it gave her the proper leverage. She shoved the blade into the wall of the surface anomaly a few times to test it out. Then she untied the dog's lead and yelled at him to clear off.
He loped a few feet away to the edge of the camp, flicking his ears forward. At least he had a better chance at survival than Dakar.
Zezili went to the edge of the hole and peered in. She got down on her belly to try to see the other side, but all was blackness. And in that blackness she saw Anavha's pained face. The mirror exploding in the other world. The end of the fucking world.
Fuck it.
She crawled down into the blackness, pushing dirt and insects, and Rhea's eye alone knew what, past her as she went. It wasn't high enough for her to walk, so she moved along on her elbows and knees, huffing in the smell of the dirt.
The darkness stretched on. She was descending slowly. She felt the descent in the curve of the floor.
What kind of weapon was down here?
She crawled and crawled. The air still felt fresh.
A flicker of light.
She squinted and crawled toward the light. The hole was curved upward again.
Thank Rhea.
As she rose, she began to smell something bad. The unmistakable stench of rot.
Zezili huffed her way to the lip of the hole and braced herself for whatever was on the other side.
She took a deep breath and popped her head out. Then ducked back down.
Her brain frantically tried to make sense of what she'd just seen. Zezili steadied herself. She looked again.
She had come up inside the living circular barrier – the strange anomaly on the map. Great, tangled tree limbs clawed upward from the top of the barrier, obscuring the sky.
The ground was littered with bodies for as far as Zezili could see, in various states of decay. Some were merely skeletons, tangles of bone and armor. Others were bloated bags of meat and she crawled over the lip of the hole carefully, weapon at the ready. She kept low, walked over to the first body. This one was very ripe, maybe six or seven days dead. She knew the armor. The Eye of Rhea was embossed on the helm.
All around her, above the bodies, hung massive cocoons as big as cages. They dangled from the broad branches of the trees. Some of them had split open. They dripped with some kind of plant goo or mucus. The one nearest her trembled softly.
Zezili stepped back, nearly falling back into the hole.
She heard a susurrus, like a swarm of insects rubbing its wings together. A hundred paces across the broad plain of bodies, six figures moved toward her, ducking their heads, their arms moving strangely, as if double-jointed. They were golden creatures, naked, with two sets of legs and absurdly narrow waists, like wasps.
But it was their gait that gave them away, the way they moved side to side, cocking their heads at her like curious cats, green eyes blinking furiously.
They walked like the Empress. They walked like the woman who had sent for them, their… mother? Their companion? These were the Empress's weapon. Her own people.
The Empress always wore a big, beautiful belled skirt, hiding two sets of legs, padding out an impossibly small waist.
They were visitors from somewhere else, hidden in some other time for just this moment: the moment when Rhea herself was coming back into the sky, and the Empress called them home.
|
(Worldbreaker Saga 2) The Empire Ascendant
|
Kameron Hurley
|
[
"fantasy",
"LGBT",
"science fiction fantasy"
] |
[] |
Chapter 39
|
The Liona Stronghold disintegrated, like a body covered in lye.
Kirana sat at the head of her army, gaze fixed on Navaa, or Isoail, whatever she called herself here. She was not as powerful as Kirana had hoped, but it was enough to turn the tide. The wall fell, a body devoid of bones, skin sloughing away. The plants that held it together sizzled. The stones flowed like water, melting. And then there was the screaming.
Kirana had heard worse screaming. A woman stood on the wall, many women, yes, but Kirana remembered one women, standing firm on the parapet, screaming at their parajistas while Navaa cut through their defenses like some horrifying specter.
All they loved, all they hoped for, all they wanted, dead in a few hours.
The steaming wreck of the wall littered the pass, a great morass of stone and blazing plant matter.
Kirana did not leap across it. She waited for her advance troops to go first, picking their way among the wreckage. Then she patted her bear over. Her weapon unfurled from her wrist. She kept it out as they crept across the stone barrier that had held back the people of Dorinah for five hundred years. Navaa went first, prodded along by Kirana's loyal parajistas. Kirana kept a watch on her, looking for any sign of her turning. But what loyalty did this dajian have, to a country she had never known? None.
They trundled to the other side, passing body after body. Kirana saw mangled limbs. Grasping hands. Tattered clothing. She saw the remains of paintings and rugs and barrels and any number of things, and for a moment she lamented the waste. Surely they could have salvaged something from the destruction?
It was then that she saw the force waiting for them on the other side. At least four hundred militia and several hundred more support staff wielding sticks and stones rushed across the blasted wall to meet her.
Kirana had not expected so many to rally behind the wall, and certainly did not anticipate so many would stay once it was clear there would be no victory for them here.
It took another two hours to crush and scatter that force, which proved remarkably relentless for a bunch of pacifists.
Kirana dispatched a dozen of them herself, splattering more blood across her boots, feeding her hungry armor. When they were dispatched, Madah rode up beside her, so very young and strangely jolly.
"What do you see?" Kirana asked, because sometimes she could not trust her own sense of things.
"I see victory," Madah said, and Kirana looked at the destruction anew, now from Madah's eyes, and she saw a clear way across the rubble. They would move through the towering trees on the other side and make their passage into Dhai, then to Kuallina, and further on, to the temples, their ultimate goal, a goal her people had been struggling to reach for thousands of years, the goal that would be hers, the one all the history books would assign to her. She took a deep breath, pulling in the scent of the stone dust, the pulped plant matter. This was her achievement. This was her legacy.
They broke out across the wreck of Liona and into the clearing beyond. Kirana saw refugees running from the destruction, people caught outside the fall of the wall, or those who were camping outside it. Shrieks. Calls for mercy. Nothing she had not heard before. But as her bear trundled into the clearing, she pulled it to a halt and watched them, really watched them for the first time. She had sent many to kill these people in her stead. She had ships in their harbor, ships that had obliterated their defenses there. But here she saw them. Really saw them.
Her people.
Kirana frowned. Her weapon began to retreat into her wrist, a bonsa branch that had lost its will. She curled her fingers, coaxing it back to life, and it extended. She gripped it tightly. Not her people, no. Pacifists. Cannibals. Fools. Every one of them.
"Pursue them," she barked at Madah.
"Yes, Kai."
Madah called to the squad behind her, and six dozen Tai Mora, weapons raised, galloped after the fleeing Dhai.
Kirana curled a lip in disgust. To come so far and lose her stomach now would be a tragedy. She snarled and raised her own weapon. Slapped her bear forward. She pursued Madah and her squad.
She cut down the fleeing Dhai. Great slashing hacks. A young man with a crooked nose. A grandmother carrying a small child. Three adolescents hardly old enough to fuck. She sliced them down, yanking them from the world like hunks of rice.
Kirana caught up to Madah's forces. Bodies littered the long plain from Liona to the woods. Bunches of floxflass collected around their bears' paws.
"Walking trees out there," Madah said. "Waiting for them to pass."
"How many escaped?"
"We got all we could see."
Kirana stared back at the ruin of the wall. "Hold here in case any more escape the wreckage," she said. "I need to wait on intelligence."
"Yes, Kai," Madah said, and Kirana adored what she saw in her face – the fierceness, the absolute certainty. There was more certainty in that face than Kirana had felt in twenty years. She thought again of Yisaoh, and her heart ached. Would this all be worth it without Yisaoh?
Kirana shook the thought from her head and paced back to the bulk of her force as they streamed over the wall that had once been Liona. They were stabbing at the rubble, dispatching those who had survived the fall.
She called one of her lieutenants, and had him open a wink to Gaiso, at the outskirts of Dorinah.
"We're in Dhai," Kirana said.
"We arrived in Daorian just ahead of those fourth world travelers," Gaiso said. "The Empress is hardened against us. She has some kind of… I don't know what she has up around this wall. It's like nothing I've seen."
"Hold there. We may be able to take the temples soon."
"Timeline?"
"Uncertain. I'm getting reports that Honorin's force at the harbor is pushing the remaining resistance to Kuallina. If we can break them at Kuallina, we have them."
"Without the rice fields in Dorinah–"
"I rely on you for that."
"I can take Dorinah, but without the dajians to farm this land, we've got very little to keep us going past the fall. You know that."
"I rely on your resourcefulness."
"Kai, I–"
"There are a good number of people in Dorinah," Kirana said. "Put them to good use."
Gaiso smacked her lips. "The Dorinahs won't make good slaves."
"When the alternative is death, you'd be surprised at who chooses slavery," Kirana said. "They will submit."
Gaiso pursed her mouth. Kirana didn't like that look. "Kai, the logistics of this–"
"When have the logistics been possible?" Kirana said. "Yet here we are. We are almost there, Gaiso. I close these gates–"
"We're still missing the instructions–"
"The temple will know me. It will speak to me. Have a heart, Gaiso."
Gaiso nodded. Curtly. Kirana flexed her left fist. They were committed. Gaiso would push to the end. They all would, the ones who had come this far. One did not destroy millions only to give up with the final twenty thousand already in the noose.
"Chin up, Gaiso. You'll get your children over. I have them on the list."
"When, Kai?"
"When we have them." She would have found and killed Gaiso's children before she found Yisaoh, she knew. But that was how it went. Gaiso's children would still be in clan Garika, ripe for picking on the way to Kuallina.
Kirana severed the connection and galloped about the ruins with the others, running through any Dhai still living. When it was done, she called back through to Shova on the other side, and told him to try pushing through another wave of their people.
She sat on a giant boulder inside the ruin where she had a clear view of the wink while they tried to send in another wave. Eighteen more of her people were able to get through. Eighteen! How many had they eliminated in this foray, to get that eighteen?
It frustrated her that there was no clear analog between her people and the ones they killed. Sometimes the ones they killed had doubles in her world, and sometimes they did not. That meant some of her people couldn't get through, but many could. It was a stupid cosmic rule. She felt, often, as if Oma were making fun of her and her people, or perhaps making fun of the Dhai here. Who knew? But it was deplorable. Disgusting.
She made camp and settled in, but could not sleep. The killing gave her nightmares. The smell of the stone dust clogged her nostrils. When she closed her eyes, she saw Navaa looking at her with accusing eyes, so black. So cold. She was tired of the cold.
She closed her eyes.
Saw Yisaoh's face.
She woke to a voice at the door to her tent. "Enter," she said, without being absolutely certain who had knocked.
A young woman stood in front of her, a hunched, awkward looking thing, with scars on her face, as if she'd been stabbed with a sharp implement. She listed to one side, as if her left leg could not properly hold her weight.
Kirana feared sounding foolish, so didn't ask her name. "What?"
"You've made a terrible mistake," the girl said.
"Is that so?"
"I will meet you in Kuallina. We must speak. This destruction had gone on long enough."
"The destruction is just starting," Kirana said. "We must burn to start over. I've told all of you this many times. Who are you?"
"You'll know," the girl said. "You'll know in Kuallina."
Kirana felt dizzy. She staggered. When she looked up, the girl was gone. She huffed out a breath. Yelled for the guards. They ran in, oblivious. She asked if anyone had been past them, and they looked at her as if she were mad.
But she knew she wasn't mad. It was the sky that was mad, and it was doing mad things to them. Everything was breaking apart: the worlds, the seams between them, the distances between people and places, even time itself, all muddled and distorted.
I'm dreaming of the Dhai, she thought, and they are dreaming of me. But those dreams will be true, soon. So very soon.
Kuallina. They would smash the Dhai at Kuallina.
|
(Worldbreaker Saga 2) The Empire Ascendant
|
Kameron Hurley
|
[
"fantasy",
"LGBT",
"science fiction fantasy"
] |
[] |
Chapter 40
|
Kuallina lay an hour distant. Lilia saw the bulk of it against the horizon from her perch on the topmost branches of an abandoned bonsa house. Tasia combed the garden below with Laralyn, looking for forgotten tubers or hidden food stores. The fires of the army still burned north of her at the harbor. The gates themselves must be on fire, not just the town, to burn like that over four days.
Lilia climbed down from the tree, breathing easy and free. Four days chewing raw mahuan had made her feel strong, weightless. For the first time in years she was nearly free of pain. Though her stomach cramped and her stool was bloody, she preferred this slow death to the faster one. She made her way carefully back down the side of the tree house, using a ladder made of trained vines. The nights were still cool, but the vines were flowering. They had passed great swaths of purple and white wildflowers on their long walk to Kuallina. Lilia insisted they stay off the road, which took longer. They had to haul Amelia out of a bladder trap. Laralyn nearly lost an eye to a lashing corpse flower. Her vision had gone misty. Tulana broke out into a rash after stumbling into some toxic flower.
Lilia had no illusions about where they were headed, or what their final fate would be. She knew in her heart – knew it and embraced it. She resolved to save nothing for the way back. There was no way back.
"So what is your grand plan?" Tulana said as Lilia kicked off the ladder.
"We need to get into Kuallina first," Lilia said. "You'll need to help with that." In truth, Lilia had no plan. But no one followed a person without a plan. She needed more than compulsion to inspire these women.
"What do you need us for?" Tulana said. "This country is lost."
Lilia glanced over at Tasia where she clawed at the remains of the garden.
"Come inside," Lilia said, and motioned Tulana into the house. The door was unlocked, like all doors in Dhai. Its inhabitants had left in advance of the army.
"I can't draw on Oma anymore," Lilia said. She made herself look at Tulana as she said it, because to do any less would show weakness, and she had never been weaker than in this moment. Saying it aloud made her mournful again. How much differently would this war have gone if she had not burned out? If Taigan was still here?
"Burned out?" Tulana said. Her lip curled. "Is that so?"
"I don't need a lecture."
"I wasn't going to lecture," Tulana said, and her tone changed. It was she who looked away. "You aren't the first arrogant little girl to destroy herself because she thought she didn't need training."
"You're still bound to me. Your ward is still good. You've seen it."
"Indeed I have," Tulana said. Her face crumpled. She wiped her face with her fists, cleared her throat. "There's a very popular story you dajians tell, about servitude. I've seen you playing at it in Dorinah, breaking your own farm implements so you don't have to work. Burning your own crops. Letting giant floxflass nests devour the puppies you're tending. It's an ugly thing, but I'm told you call it resistance, and it gives you some pleasure. It's a thing I'm coming to understand, this delight in destruction of what one has built."
"No more talking," Lilia said. "Doing."
"And how is it you intend to stop me?"
The air vibrated. For a moment, Lilia thought she could see the red mist forming around Tulana, but no. It was just the memory of it, her mind conjuring a vision to pair with the milky air.
"You really have burned yourself out, haven't you?" Tulana said. Whatever she held, she released. The air pressure normalized. It wasn't as if Tulana could move against her. The ward prevented it. But whatever she spun must have been grim. "You think your little dajian refugees love you? Just wait until they find out you're not a god, just some ugly little girl. I can tell you exactly what happens next. You get stoned to death, or thrown off the top of that hulking fortress."
"You don't know anything about Dhai."
"I know they'll eat you alive – they won't even give you the courtesy to wait until death! – if you don't figure out very quickly how to put together an army and hold a position. You've lost Taigan. I worked with Zezili Hasaria, directing legions of women and Seekers against the outer islands, and even the Saiduan. I've seen war. I know it. You'll lose."
"My intention isn't to have you fight a war on their terms," Lilia said.
Tulana crossed her arms. "What are you proposing?"
"You led the Seekers in war."
"Wait now–"
"When we get to Kuallina, I'll need you to train the Oras who will go with us. I need them trained properly, to fight as units, the way they do in Dorinah."
"You'd put me in charge of thousands of gifted?"
"There aren't that many," Lilia said. "I can get the full count, though."
"How many do you think there are?"
"There are only twenty thousand people in Dhai," Lilia said. "Oras? I don't know, but not more than six or eight hundred."
She saw something sorrowful pass over Tulana's face. "What is it?" Lilia asked.
"That's… we'll lose that many in the first day facing that army coming up from the coast."
"We aren't going to stay and fight," Lilia said. The plan was taking shape in her mind as she spoke.
"What will your Kai think of that?"
"It doesn't matter what he thinks," Lilia said. "They won't be following him. They will follow me."
"I have no reason to–"
Lilia thumbed at the ward.
Tulana's knees buckled. She fell. She curled into a ball on the ground. The reaction was so fast, so potent, Lilia released the ward immediately.
Tulana threw up one of her hands. The air got heavy, but nothing happened to Lilia. The ward was too powerful.
"I could kill you now," Lilia said. Her voice was steady. She placed her hands on the table. Her hands were steady.
Tulana huffed out a long breath. The expression she set on Lilia then made Lilia's stomach turn. She had never seen so much hatred in a person's face.
"Aren't you supposed to fuck each other to work out disagreements?"
"Will you do it, or should I kill you here?"
Tulana grimaced. "Don't expect miracles."
"That's exactly what I expect," Lilia said. "The Dhai will look for a miracle to save them. And I will give them a miracle."
Dawn.
The time of miracles.
Lilia chewed mahuan root. Tulana stood beside her, with Voralyn and Amelia just behind, and Laralyn at the back, holding Tasia's hand. They stood on a slight rise looking out at the broad camp of the Tai Mora army. The army had burned out the wooded area for half a mile in every direction and set their camp right on it. Compared to the vast army Lilia had glimpsed when she crossed to the other side, they were a small force, but by Dhai standards, the rows and rows of tents and cook fires were overwhelming, a pustulous plague of at least a thousand, including support personnel. Lilia and the Seekers had hidden from four scouting parties. The scouts were going house to house, killing everyone within and stealing whatever wasn't bolted down.
"Spectacle," Tulana said.
"People fear spectacles," Lilia said. "Spectacles can be shocking." She remembered the smoke that poured over them as they fled from the harbor. A needless spectacle.
"We have no advantage."
"They want Dhai intact," Lilia said. "The less damage, the better. They may be stealing and killing, but they aren't burning out the houses or the gardens, did you notice? Just the roads, and the harbor gate. It's why they sent smoke after us but not fire. They aren't here to pillage. They're going to make this their home."
Tulana tugged at her coat. "No one will agree to your plan. No one in their right mind would destroy their own country."
"It's just things," Lilia said. "Not people. If we destroy what they came for, we thwart them, don't we?"
"You need some adults to knock sense into you."
"Once we get to the clearing, you need to–"
"I remember," Tulana said. "We'll do it.
"There won't be much time before–"
"This isn't my first tumble, girl," Tulana said. "Trickery won't get you far."
"It only needs to get me past the army," Lilia said.
They had discussed a route around the army, endlessly, but the army was running patrols now, keeping anyone from coming into or going out of the massive protective parajista barriers that had been deployed around the hold. The refugees caught outside the walls of Kuallina but inside the parajista barrier could see eye to eye with the Tai Mora while they slept.
Lilia stepped away from them. She was wrapped in a bubble of Para's breath deployed by Amelia. She walked unchallenged to the edge of the camp, heart pounding. There was no mistaking what she was now. They would know her the moment they saw her.
And they did.
She strode out past the trees, holding a blazing willowthorn weapon aloft, infused by Voralyn while they waited on the rise overlooking the ramp.
"Disperse!" Lilia said, and she could not imagine what she looked like in that moment; some twisted, mad figure, holding a flaming brand. "Disperse or my army will rout you!"
As they had at Liona, the Seekers amplified her voice. It rolled over the camp like some thunderous god's.
Heads looked up from campfires, and peered out from tents. The army scrambled, a hive of angry bees. A horde of them attacked her outright. She held her ground. Did not budge as they swarmed her barrier.
"Get the jistas!" someone yelled.
Infused weapons uncurled from their wrists. The last time Lilia saw a weapon like that, it was hacking up her mother's body.
She strode further into the camp. The huff of air around her pushed away the crowd of soldiers before they could reach her. "Those who stand will meet the wrath of my army," Lilia yelled, and she felt profoundly foolish for a long moment. She sounded like a fool from some dramatic Dorinah opera.
Then came the illusion.
It winked into existence on the other side of Kuallina, a shimmering oval mirror half the size of the fortress, bleeding red light across the whole field. Lilia squinted into it. It was far brighter than she anticipated. The bloody light lit the whole field. It was then that they believed. It was then that they cowered.
How many other worlds were in play, now? She didn't know. They didn't either. She could be anyone, from anywhere, with as much power as she pretended.
But not for long.
"Jistas!"
A buffet of air smashed into her protective shield. She felt it vibrate. How long Laralyn held it… well, the Seekers would not sob if she died terribly in this moment.
The mirror illusion trembled. Red light burst across the field, and inside the face of the mirror was a foreign landscape – a Dorinah one, most likely, considering its maker – and a vast army decked in Dorinah armor and red plumes so realistic that Lilia feared for a long moment it was real, and that the Seekers had tricked her.
But the edges of the illusion shimmered. She knew it for what it was, so she pushed on, weapon raised, yelling at them about the mighty power of her army.
The lines nearest the mirror broke. She saw them turn. She screamed louder, flashing the sword about like it was the thing controlling the vast army about to crush them.
"Regroup!"
She heard it from the same direction as the mirror. "Regroup!"
Flags went up, great red and blue and purple standards waving left, right twice, then three times. The massive army peeled away from Lilia.
She swung her weapon again, flat out at her left side, the signal for the Seekers to advance.
Lilia did not wait to see if the Seekers broke from the trees to follow her, but strode purposefully across the scattered camp.
Every cry of "Jistas!" made her stomach knot, but she went on. They would uncover the ruse any moment. Once the jistas were assembled they would be able to see it and untangle it.
She hurried. Members of the army ran into her barrier, and fell back, shocked. She could see their faces now, faces of every shape and hue. Tall men, broad-shouldered women, scraggly youths, even children and camp followers, their hair braided nearly as intricately as a Dorinah's. Some of the camp followers wore leather chokers, and she wondered if they were slaves, but the army was, no doubt, free. Fighting willingly because not fighting meant dying under a burning star on a doomed world.
Would Lilia have died over there, or would she have fought? In some other world she was camped here among these people, fleeing certain death.
"I would have fought!" she yelled, aloud, and realized that much of what she'd been thinking she'd been spouting out at the people rushing around her.
When she came to the other side of the camp, her throat was sore, and her feet ached. She needed a hunk of mahuan root. She dug about for one in her bag.
The barrier around her shook. She saw a man on the other side hacking at her shield with a great infused blade. Blue light sparked from the weapon. She stared at him from her side of the barrier, fascinated, like watching some deadly animal worry at a cage.
What would she do, when he burst through?
She put the mahuan root into her mouth and chewed slowly while contemplating his efforts. He did not look like the Tai Mora. He was broad and flat-featured, with sallow skin and curly black hair knotted in white ribbons. He looked very hungry. And his eyes…
Lilia stepped forward, to the edge of the barrier, and peered at him. He hacked directly at the barrier in front of her face. She did not flinch.
"Do your worst," she whispered. "I am going to outlast you."
"Jistas!"
A flurry of flags, again.
Now that she was close enough to the barrier around Kuallina, she saw curious Dhai peering at her. She shifted her attention to them.
Another soldier ran by, grabbing the one assaulting her, and they plunged back toward the illusion of the mirror.
Lilia walked right up to the edge of the barrier around Kuallina.
Tulana came up behind her, tall and regal in the afternoon light. "You sold that spectacularly," she said. "I think they feared you more than whatever was going to come out of that mirror."
Lilia did not say that desperation and madness were sisters, that one often led to the other. She just nodded, and called to the people on the other side of the parajista barrier.
"I am Lilia Sona!" she said, and Tulana raised her hand, palm up, and the voice carried. "I've come back from the walls of the harbor with a message for the Kai."
"I can try and force it open," Laralyn said, glancing back the camp. The mirror image was still pouring fake soldiers onto the field, but it would not be much longer before the army realized they were merely illusions.
"Hold," Lilia said. "If we fight them, they'll see us as the enemy."
She almost laughed, and had to cover her mouth. The enemy. What did that mean, anymore?
The parajistas opened a sliver in the barrier and let them through. Someone in there must have vouched for her. Ghrasia, maybe. Lilia stumbled on the other side. Tulana caught her arm, and kept her upright as waves of refugees swarmed forward. Lilia stiffened, suddenly terrified they would tear her apart for losing them the harbor.
"Faith!" they called. "Faith! Faith!"
They raised their hands and their voices. The chant rolled out across the disheveled swarms of people camped all around the hold. As she walked forward, they did not overtake her, but moved out of her way. Children ran to the front.
Tasia came from Laralyn's side and grabbed her hand. She gazed up at her with wide, awestruck eyes. "Are you really Faith Ahya?" she said.
Lilia did not answer. She moved through the crowd until she saw a woman so familiar it brought tears to her eyes. She came up short, thinking she was imagining her.
"Emlee," Lilia said.
The old woman clucked at her and moved toward her from the crowd. She looked terribly frail, but when Lilia took her hand, Emlee's grip was firm and warm. "What have you done out here? What's happened to you?"
"I was trying to save people."
"How can a child do that, when she has not yet saved herself?" Emlee said.
"I didn't think you'd come. I thought you were dead."
"I nearly was. The rest of us followed after you, eventually. Got caught up in the madness at Liona. I'm not much of a healer without my people. And there are plenty of us here now."
"What's been happening?" Lilia asked. For the first time in many weeks, she felt like a child again. It was comforting, looking to the adults for answers.
"They say there's another army coming, from Liona. Not ours."
"How is that possible?"
"Does Gian know you're alive, or Cora?"
Lilia shook her head. "I haven't seen them. Do you know–"
"Inside," Emlee said, and her expression darkened. "Gian went inside at the head of the first wave. She said you were dead. It's been yelled all through camp for days. She has the Catori's ear, now."
Lilia frowned. "I'm sure she'll be pleased to see me."
"I'm sure," Emlee said, and she squeezed Lilia's hand when she said it, but it was not a reassuring grip. It was a knowing one. "You are very deep into this, Lilia," she continued softly. "Where is your sanisi?"
"It's all very complicated," Lilia said. "Will you come inside with me?"
"No, my work is here," Emlee said. "But when the call started I wanted to see… I wanted to make sure it was you. The true one."
Lilia made her way to the gates. The sally port was open, letting supply carts through to feed those scattered outside, but there were eight militia guarding the single entry, ensuring those outside didn't come in.
As she approached, the sea of refugees parting before her, the militia straightened. Gaped.
"Take me to Ghrasia Madah," she said. "I'm Lilia Sona. She will know who I am."
Silence. Confused looks. Finally, the nearest one said, "Ghrasia is not here. Catori Mohrai is in charge of Kuallina."
"Then take me to her. She'll know who I am, too."
"Our orders are–"
"Should I tell these people you won't admit me?" Lilia said. "Should I tell them Oma's most gifted jista is being kept at the gate?" She thought to make a threat to use Oma against them, but with Tulana and the other Seekers behind her, it felt even crueler. Empty words. Empty threats. Without access to Oma, her power rested entirely with the people behind her, and power like that, so difficult to gain, was very easy to lose.
They took her inside, and across the crowded courtyard. The Dhai from the surrounding clans had been given access to the interior of Kuallina. They wore the shorter haircuts and uniform clothing of residents. Lilia felt a needling annoyance at that. She suspected many of the Dhai from the camp had arrived here ahead of the locals, but would not have been permitted past the gates.
She told Tulana and the others to stay in the yard with Tasia, though Tasia begged to go up with her. "You can look for your parents here," Lilia said, and gave Laralyn a long look. Laralyn grimaced, but took the girl's hand and pulled her away. If Tasia's parents survived, they would be here. Lilia was uncertain of the likelihood of that. She had no idea about losses yet.
Two militia escorted her upstairs into the heart of the hold. Kuallina was an old hold, built the same way as the temples. When Lilia put her hands to the walls she could almost feel it breathe.
She had thought Liona felt crowded, stuffed far past capacity, but that was nothing compared to Kuallina. The sheer weight of humanity around her was stifling. She was irritable, claustrophobic, but she could breathe and walk more or less straight, with just a little dragging of her bad leg, and that was something. She pulled the wad of mahuan pulp from her mouth and put it into her pocket. Her head was starting to swim.
They ushered her into a little room, more like a storage closet, and told her to wait. For the first time, Lilia felt some trepidation. Was she a criminal, now? Was this prison?
She paced, walking around the room in a discrete circle, running through her argument again and again.
The door opened thirty minutes later. Mohrai pushed in, mouth firm. "What do you want?" she said. "I thought you were dead at the wall."
"I need to speak to Ghrasia," Lilia said. "If you plan to hold up here, the plan is flawed."
"Ghrasia is dead," Mohrai said. "She died at Liona."
"What?"
"Liona has fallen," Mohrai said. "We have two armies coming directly here. The one from the harbor and the one from Dorinah, the one that breached Liona."
"We can't stay here," Lilia said. "I brought Seekers with me. They are trained in war. We can use them as a diversion to plot a course to the Woodland, but we must destroy everything behind us. If we burn out the stores in Kuallina and the clans, we leave them nothing to live on. If we–"
"The Kai is coming here by Lift. He'll be here within the hour. He'll decide how much of your nonsense is worth listening to. I told him not to send you to the harbor. I told him I–"
"Then I will take the Dhai from the camps," Lilia said, not wanting to argue in this little room. "I will take them west, into the Woodland. The army won't be able to follow us there. They can try to burn us out, but the geography–"
"We won't all become refugees like you," Mohrai said. "This is our home. You wouldn't understand that."
"It's my home too."
"Is it? Are you certain?"
Lilia firmed her jaw. "My plan would have worked," she said. "You were in charge of the harbor, and it fell. It was nothing to do with me. The Oras were untrained. The militia was not ready. And we still don't know why they attacked as soon as they did. Their emissary was still at Oma's Temple. Not even you suspected an attack without warning."
"We'll never know, will we?" Mohrai said. "Ahkio was a fool to send you to the harbor, and we were foolish to listen to you. If we–"
"Don't blame me for this," Lilia said.
Mohrai said, "Things are exceedingly grim here, and you–"
"Catori?" said someone outside the door. "The Kai is here."
"Stay here," Mohrai said, and shut the door.
Lilia leaned against the far wall and slid to the floor. Her fate was in the hands of someone else, again. She did not like these talks. Talking, talking, when what she wanted, what she needed, was to act.
It was more than an hour before someone came for her, and then she suspected they might just feed her, or kick her out. It was a young novice. Lilia recognized her – she was a companion of the Kai.
"I'm Caisa," she said. "The Kai has asked you up."
But they did not go up, they went down to a broad dining room where the Kai stood, his back to the windows – a foolish position, Lilia thought – as well as Mohrai, and half a dozen faces she did not recognize.
"What happened?" the Kai asked.
Lilia told him. Not just their original plan, and what happened at the wall, but how she had escaped, and awed the army into letting her through. What she didn't tell him was that she had burned out. If she told him that, she feared Mohrai would throttle her right on the table. When she was finished, he did not look at her, but the vast map of Dhai on the table.
Into the silence, Mohrai said, "I really think–"
"Give me a moment, Mohrai," he said.
Lilia wanted to clasp and unclasp her hands again, but stilled them. She stood as straight as she could.
"I have a plan for Kuallina," Lilia said.
He barked a laugh. "Do you?"
"I'm not a seer," Lilia said. "I'm a strategist. I didn't anticipate that they would attack us while they had an emissary at Oma's Temple. I thought we could act first. But they thought the same. It was a matter of who moved fastest. We couldn't get the sinajistas to the wall in time to build the warded spells to attach to the boats. We needed more time, and we did not have it."
"You didn't tell me about this plan," he said. "I could have… delayed the emissary."
"Do you trust every person around you?" Lilia said. She did not point fingers at those in the room, but Lilia had already met a lot of travelers, a lot of shadows. If there were none in his inner circle, she would be inordinately surprised. "If any of us sent you word, it could have been intercepted."
"Ghrasia is dead," he said. He voice broke.
"I know," Lilia said.
"And half of Asona. We've lost–"
Lilia raised her voice. "And we'll lose more if we sit here waiting for that second army," she said.
"There are injured," Mohrai said. "Sick people, elders, children. You want to take those all into the Woodland, for your fool plan?"
"They'll die if you keep them here. Do you want to lose everyone here, or just a few?"
"You're a cold person," the Kai said.
"You're not cold enough," she said. "It's why we're here. What happened with the emissary? Why did they attack?"
The Kai raised a hand. "Mohrai, Caisa, the rest of you, leave us for a moment."
"Ahkio," Mohrai said.
"Just… leave us."
Lilia tried to hide her surprise. She'd expected to be thrown in the storage closet, or fed to the army.
But the room cleared out, as he asked. She stood alone with him in the broad room with its streaming light and horrifying view of the burned-out plain and the camping army.
"What are you?" he said. Cold. Keen eyes.
"I told you–"
"What. Are. You?"
"My mother hid me here," she said. "I was very young. I thought it was a dream. She opened a way between my world, the one with the burnt sky, and this one. I've lived here my whole life. They hid hundreds of omajista children here, the resistance. There's a resistance on the other side, though I haven't met many of them. Gian–" but it was the wrong Gian she wanted to tell him about, so she swallowed her words. "The woman who brought me here was one. I went to the other side to find my mother, just before we came here. They were building a great mirror there to keep the way between their world and ours open, and I destroyed it with the help of a Dorinah legionnaire. I killed my own mother there, too, when I did it. It was the only way." Her voice rose. "I killed my own mother, and I'm just like them now. I'm everything Dhai hates. I can see how you look at me, and you should. You should look at me that way. But who better to fight them than me? They took everything from me. They will take everything from you, too, if you let them."
Silence.
She swallowed hard. He turned away from her, and gazed long out the window at the army.
"I agree with you that we'll lose if we fight them," he said. "Not just this war, but the one for who we are in the future, too. If all that's left of us is the fighters, the killers, what kind of society will they build? I don't want to save the strongest, the most ruthless of us. I want to save the smartest, the most compassionate, the very best of us. Do you understand?"
She moved forward to the short end of the table, so she could hear him better. His voice was so low. "If you hold them here, they will all die," Lilia said. "The way we did at the harbor."
"Mohrai will hold the bulk of the militia here," he said, "and most of the Oras. You'll have some novices, and those Dorinahs you brought with you."
"I understand."
"You're going to need a distraction to get past that army."
"I've thought of that," she said.
"Another illusion?"
"No one falls for an illusion twice," she said. "They'll anticipate that now."
"You should go before the second army gets here."
"I can't," Lilia said. "It's better if there's a second army, because it means we'll have someone to invite to dinner."
"What?"
"You're going to invite their leader to dinner," Lilia said, "and tell her that we surrender."
|
(Worldbreaker Saga 2) The Empire Ascendant
|
Kameron Hurley
|
[
"fantasy",
"LGBT",
"science fiction fantasy"
] |
[] |
Chapter 41
|
Lilia found Gian in Mohrai's quarters, speaking in a voice so loud Lilia heard it through the door. Lilia opened the door without prelude, and stood frowning while Gian turned.
Gian's expression was difficult to read. Shock, horror? She leapt up and ran toward Lilia. Lilia did not open her arms, but endured the embrace stiffly, guardedly. Gian's hair was clean, the clothes new. Gian took her so tightly that even more of Lilia's charred clothes smeared away.
"I thought you were dead," Gian said, breathless. Lilia looked beyond her, to Mohrai.
"What were you speaking of?" A question for Mohrai, not Gian.
Mohrai stood. "Gian suggested we send her out to negotiate."
"Curious," Lilia said, tone flat. "What makes you think they would listen to you?"
"I…" Gian trailed off. Released her. "It's just that, I thought–"
"Are you theirs?"
"What? Tai Mora? No! How could you think–"
"Then why would you–"
"Emlee told me about Gian," Gian said. "Your… other Gian."
Lilia hissed out a breath. "She had no right to tell you that."
"If that Gian was part of some resistance, I could pretend–"
"You will stay out of this," Lilia said. "Emlee had no right to tell you about Gian. My Gian."
Gian's face fell. "I thought–"
"That's enough here," Lilia said. "The Kai and I have already discussed a plan. We'll do it when the rest of the parajistas arrive from the temples. He's had to call them all here. It could be a few more days."
"Lilia–" Gian's tone was wheedling. Lilia didn't like it.
"I'm having a bath and going to bed," Lilia said. "Do you have a place for me, Mohrai?"
"No," Mohrai said. "You'll have to share with Gian."
Lilia nodded curtly. "I need to have my jistas accommodated. They are prepared for war, unlike ours. I'm putting them in charge of our defenses."
"The Kai approved that as well?"
"I would not have–"
"How many is he going to marry?" Mohrai said, bitterly.
"What?"
"Is that what he offered you? Do you have some secret child, too?"
"I have no idea what you're talking about."
Mohrai waved at her. "Never mind."
"Show me where the room is, Gian," Lilia said.
Gian hung her head. Lilia felt guilty, then. Weren't they all just doing the best they could? Gian led her to a small, cramped room with two narrow beds. The slim window looked out into the central courtyard, now packed with Dhai from the surrounding clans. Lilia gazed out over them, a swarm of desperate people.
Gian closed the door. "The Kai married another woman," Gian said, "and declared a Li Kai. They're saying that's not usual."
Lilia rubbed her face. It was tingly from all the mahuan root. She was salivating again, hungry. What was a little more? "No, that's not very usual. Kais haven't had multiple spouses since…" She racked her memory for the history of it. "Since at least the first two."
Married and declared a Li Kai… he must have thought he was going to die here in Kuallina. Lilia didn't blame him.
She took a breath. "It's gone," Lilia said.
Gian stiffened. The rigidness of her body frightened Lilia.
"Oma," Lilia said. "It's… gone."
"That can't be."
Lilia started to cry. She hadn't let herself cry yet, and it all came out now, loud and ugly. "I think I burned myself out. I didn't know. I wasn't trained. That's all Taigan would say, how I wasn't trained."
Gian tangled her fingers in Lilia's hair and made soothing sounds. "It will be all right."
"Please stay with me," Lilia said.
"Of course, yes," Gian said.
"Will you hold me?"
Gian lay next to her in the bed. She pressed her body against Lilia's, spooning her from behind, but Lilia could feel the fear and anxiety in her body. It made Lilia tense too. Who was she, if not a powerful omajista? Without Oma, she was just a refugee girl with a bad leg and crumpled right hand.
She needed to show strength, or she would lose all of them – Taigan, Gian, the refugees, the Kai, the Catori, the jistas. How long could she pretend nothing was different? The only omajistas she knew were Taigan and Tulana, and Taigan was gone.
Lilia felt something lumpy under the pillow and pulled it out. It was a yellowish tuber, one her mother had warned her about. The sight of it nearly stilled her heart. "Gian! Where did you get this?" Lilia said. "You haven't eaten it. Tell me you haven't eaten it!"
Gian snatched the tuber from her. "Sorry," she said. "They grow by the river. I was just saving them. I–"
Lilia found two more of them in the bed. She took them to the window and started throwing them out.
"No!" Gian said.
"These are poisonous," Lilia said. "How did you even–" And then she stopped throwing the tubers. She held the last in her hand, and squeezed it tight. "Oh," Lilia said. "Oh, this is much better."
"Can I have it back?" Gian said.
"I'll do better," Lilia said. "I'll bring you a dozen more. But don't eat them. Not yet. Not until you understand them." Lilia kissed Gian's forehead. "I have a plan, Gian. Oh, I have such a better plan now."
"What plan?" Gian said.
"I can't tell you yet. But it's going to be beautiful."
The army came from Liona, and smashed against Kuallina's eastern defenses. Ahkio stood on the wall with Lilia and Mohrai when it happened. They were a vast force, far more terrifying than the few hundred who had come down from the harbor. This was several thousand. They bore great colored banners and wore chitinous red, green and blue armor that made them look like a swarm of beetles. They burned much of the wood as they went, so the smoke preceded them.
"How do you know their leader is with them?" Ahkio asked Lilia.
She shrugged. "I don't. But if it were me, and I'd waited my whole life to take Dhai, and I wanted it untouched, I'd be here in person. She's with one of these armies, or someone who can speak for her is."
"I'm going down to calm the militia," Mohrai said. "I don't want panic."
"Gian," Lilia said. "Could you get me a coat?"
Ahkio eyed her sharply. The season was moving into low spring. It was unlikely she was cold.
Gian nodded and left them.
Lilia leaned toward Ahkio. She was a head shorter than him, though it seemed like more when she hunched over as she did now, leaning on the parapet. "I can go alone, Kai. Someone needs to lead them from here."
"We should both go," he said. "Mohrai will lead them."
She put her chin in her hand. "You have another wife at the temple, they said, and a child. Maybe things being less complicated will be good."
"No," he said. "I've considered the options. If Meyna and her child are lost, there's still Mohrai and hers. If Mohrai and hers are lost, we have Meyna." He had considered every angle. In another country they may have thought multiple heirs would divide them, but all Ahkio could think of now was redundancy. What made them different than the Tai Mora? How could they use it to their advantage?
"And you–"
"If I'm lost, it doesn't matter," he said. He was surprised at the sound of the resignation in his own voice.
"Kai, I think you should return to the temples, once I go down there."
"Is this part of your grand scheme?"
"Someone needs to lead the people from the temples into the Woodland. If you go at the same time I do, you can have them cleared out before her armies get there."
"I don't see–"
"More importantly… Kai, there's something you should do, have done, when you go up. You need to have them burn the fields behind them. The temples, too. Burn every orchard. Every house. Burn down everything in the temples. All of it."
"I thought you were mad before, but this–"
"They want Dhai untouched," Lilia said. "Did you consider why?"
"I know what they want in the temples."
"Then burn it down. Burn it all down."
Ahkio gripped the rail. His face was hard, knuckles clenched. "This strategy–"
"It's not nice," she said. "But when we were out there, we saw that they weren't destroying anything. They mean to live here, Kai. The only way to thwart that is to make it uninhabitable. Mohrai will lead them into the woodland here while I distract them. The Seekers will help. But while we're doing that, you need to start the burning. Only you can do that."
He pressed his fists to his face. "Oma's breath," he said.
"I've thought about it a hundred times," she said. "If we go, we have to burn it down."
He wept, then. He felt nothing when he did it, and Lilia just stood there dumbly beside him, chewing her mahuan root and gazing out at the army.
"If I hadn't broken the mirror it would be a much bigger army," she said, "one we couldn't have held even this long. One we couldn't run from."
When he did not stop crying, she seemed to soften, but that wasn't what he wanted. It wasn't what he needed. He wanted her to comfort him in some way, but she stood resolute. It was why he had given her this chance in the first place, because she was more ruthless than him. He knew it the moment he met her. He had unleashed this monster. It was the only way he could think to save them all, and what they were. She would be the monster. He would be the politician. He would not have a drop of blood on his own hands, though he would know, always know, that every life she took was his to share.
"I can do it myself," Lilia said. So certain.
"No," he said. "I should meet her."
"Why?"
"She's my sister," he said.
"Oh," she said. "I never had a sister."
A runner arrived for him, and he excused himself, grateful for an excuse to flee from her company. Farosi waited for him below with a message written on delicate green paper.
"From Yisaoh," Farosi said.
"You've seen her?"
"No," he said, "but I had the handwriting verified in Garika."
Ahkio opened the note.
If you've a desire to meet, it will be on my terms. Temple of Tira courtyard.
She wrote a date two days from the current one. There was still a clear Line path between Kuallina and the Temple of Tira. With the army blocking them in from the north, the temples of Sina and Para could be considered under enemy lines now. Anything north of Kuallina was gone – burned and routed – the inhabitants driven south ahead of the army. Ahkio had every parajista they could muster at Kuallina now, running in shifts, backed up by sinajistas and tirajistas, directed by Lilia's omajista captain, Tulana. He had not thought they would last a day, let alone weeks, against the armies that smashed them here at Kuallina, but the Seeker ran her teams with an iron discipline, rotating them out in two-hour shifts. The constantly shifting parajistas on the wall ran like a water clock winding down.
"Can you take a response to her?" he asked Farosi.
He shook his head. "The runner who brought it said it was a one-time offer. You meet on her terms or not at all."
Ahkio let out a huff of displeasure.
Someone knocked at the door. Caisa entered. "Kai?" She had arrived with the last of the parajistas from the Temple of Para, all that were able to get onto the last Line out.
"News?" he said.
"The… Lilia would like to see you to discuss the banquet again."
"Let that lie," he said. "I need you to come with me to the Temple of Para tomorrow."
"Why?"
"We'll discuss that on the way."
He told only Mohrai he was leaving. She was not pleased, but he pitched it as a trip to take stock of their resources at the Temple of Tira. Food was at a premium now with so much of the stores at the harbor overrun.
"No surprises," she said. "I'm sick to death of surprises."
He rode the Line south to the Temple of Tira. It took a few hours. Caisa read the whole way from The Book of Oma. He saw her mouthing the words and nearly started to recite along with her.
"Is there a Book of Oma over there?" he asked.
"No," she said. "Ours is The Book of Dhai. It's about our history, mostly, how we are the blessed of Oma, how Oma delivers us from evil during times of madness."
"How many times?"
"Four thousand years, two turns of Oma," she said. She leaned forward. Space in the bubbled chrysalis was tight, so her nose nearly brushed his. "Thank you for taking me back."
"You heard about Liaro. Did you know?"
"I know he loves you very much, Kai. I know… whatever happened, he thought he was doing the right thing."
"I've had enough of betrayal."
She moved back. "Kai, you know this is just starting."
"I thought it was ending."
She pointed at the sky. "Oma hasn't even risen yet. That's when things get very bad, the books all say."
He laughed out loud at that.
They arrived at the Temple of Tira under a misty rain. The Line carried them up and up through a massive tangle of trees, deep into the Woodland. Perched atop a massive cliff, its great foundations spanning two huge rivers spilling over the side, was the Temple of Tira, a green-black fist of a temple with the same domed top as the Temple of Oma. Even this far into the woodland, the plants had not reclaimed the temple. It kept them away with some kind of inner defense, one the Oras had never understood. Ahkio heard it posited that the temple's living skin secreted some kind of chemical or pheromone that repelled living things, but if that were so, it would have been impossible to keep a garden within the temple grounds, and Tira's gardens were the most renowned in the country. Its walls were made of tiered gardens, spilling with red and purple and yellow blossoms.
When the bubble of the Line arrived inside the Line chamber of Tira's temple, a novice already waited for them. She threw a bucket of living matter over the chrysalis, disintegrating it all around them.
Ahkio stepped free. "I have an appointment in the courtyard," he said.
"You're expected," she said. "Please wait while I get the Elder Ora."
Masura's cousin, Aimuda – an aging man with just a thin wisp of white hair left atop his slightly conical head – stepped through the doors a few minutes later. Rumor had it a midwife had pulled him from the womb with a pair of tongs, permanently deforming his head.
"Welcome to the Temple of Tira, Kai," Aimuda said, pressing thumb to forehead. "You are expected below."
Aimuda led him down six flights of stairs, plenty of time for Ahkio to note how quiet the temple seemed. "Where is everyone?" he asked.
"Only a few of the novices and the support staff remain," Aimuda said. "The rest have been sent to Kuallina."
"I didn't realize you sent so many," he said.
"Elder Ora Soruza of Oma's Temple was very persuasive in their insistence that we send all we could spare, as the very survival of Dhai was at stake. We could spare all. We sent all."
He led Ahkio into the rear courtyard among the great tiered gardens. A labyrinth of petrified bone trees stood at the center of the courtyard. The great grinning skulls leered down at him, creatures so long extinct he had no name for them.
There, at the edge of the bone tree labyrinth, stood Yisaoh, smirking and smoking.
He expected her to look haggard, pursued, thin and wan, but she was plump as ever, cleanly dressed, her hair combed to a fine luster.
"I heard you were looking for me," Yisaoh said.
"How is it you've been here all this time?"
"I haven't," she said. "Easy answer."
"You convinced the Elder Ora to harbor you for a meeting, though?"
"It's for the good of Dhai," she said, flicking ashes. "The two of us at odds has done neither of us any good."
He stepped forward, but she retreated into the shadow of the misty bone trees, her face lost to the fog. He saw only the burning embers of her cigarette.
"I came to hear your apology," she said.
"Apology?"
"What else would you call me out here for? I want to hear you apologize, and invite me back to Dhai, so I can spit in your face and laugh. Because what country do we have to return to? A bleeding mess. Your mess."
"A mess I inherited."
"Will you apologize or not?"
"The Tai Mora are looking for you."
She inhaled a long draught. Smoke bloomed around her head like a cloud. "That is a fact I'm aware of."
"If they hate you, and they hate me, that should make us great allies."
"Enemy of my enemy, and all that?" she said. It took him a moment to understand the reference. It was a Tordinian saying.
"Something like that," he said.
She nodded, then poked the hand with the cigarette at Caisa. "You still following this mad man, girl?"
"He's Kai."
"So where's my apology, Kai?" Yisaoh asked.
"I'm not here to apologize," he said. "I'm here to propose a solution to our impasse."
"This should be terribly interesting. Do continue."
"Marry me," he said.
She laughed. Laughed so hard she choked on smoke, and doubled over, waving her hand at them. "No, no, really!" she said.
"It's a very serious offer," Ahkio said. "We have a problem easily resolved. A great many women who wanted a voice as Catori."
"So your solution is to marry all of us? Oh, Ahkio, you are darling." She finished the cigarette and stomped it out under her foot.
She turned and made to enter the bone tree maze.
"I need you, Yisaoh," he said.
"Do you?"
"I need a united Dhai," he said. "Help us in Kuallina."
"Kuallina is lost."
"We know that."
"Then why ask?"
"I need you to lead the civilians out of Kuallina," he said. "You know the woodlands, and they'll follow you."
"Where are you going to be?"
"I'll go back to the Temple of Oma, and hold that position. The temples have greater defenses than the holds. But the woodlands have the best defenses, and I think you can disappear there. I think you've been planning that for some time."
"This is too bold to be your idea."
"No. There's an omajista girl, Lilia. She came up with the plan. She says we should burn everything behind us."
"She is right, you know."
"I know."
"Why not have Mohrai do it?"
"Mohrai grew up at the harbor." He thought of the lute, and her soft fingers. "She's not made for the woodlands. She doesn't know it like you do. And what Lilia has planned to delay the army while we escape… I don't think she'll survive it. Many people still trust you. A lot of those who fled to Kuallina are from Garika. They'll go with you."
"If you aren't speaking truthfully–"
"I've never lied to you, Yisaoh. You know I speak plainly."
"I'll do it on one condition," she said.
He waited. She pulled out another cigarette. He wondered how she could stand to inhale so much smoke. "You tell everyone you apologized," she said, "and never ask me to marry you again."
Ahkio broke the news of Yisaoh's arrival to Mohrai first. He found her in the great dining hall, pouring over maps of the troop arrangements outside Kuallina.
"We've turned Yisaoh," he said. "She's agreed to lead the civilians if something happens to me."
Mohrai raised her head. He wasn't sure what he expected, but it wasn't for her to shake her head resignedly. " You never wanted to be Kai," Mohrai said.
"I wanted to be a teacher." Ahkio rubbed his forehead. "And you wanted to play the lute. Yet here we are, neither teaching nor singing."
He thought she might throw something at him, but she just shrugged resignedly. "What you did is done," Mohrai said. "And so are we. Let her in, and let us discuss what's next."
|
(Worldbreaker Saga 2) The Empire Ascendant
|
Kameron Hurley
|
[
"fantasy",
"LGBT",
"science fiction fantasy"
] |
[] |
Chapter 42
|
Lilia sent out word to the armies that they wanted to parley, but received no response. The parajistas pummeled their defenses relentlessly for six days.
Lilia had Tulana, Voralyn, Laralyn and Amelia running shifts, taking turns managing the jistas on the walls. Their faces were haggard after three days. On the fourth, Tulana had a screaming fit, throwing plates and cups in Lilia's vicinity and telling her this was a fool's enterprise, and they were lost, and to just let her drop the barrier. Lilia slapped her, a woman almost twenty years her senior.
But they held out.
On the sixth day, Lilia walked down to the defenses herself. She surveyed the massive ring around the refugees, and stared into the faces of their enemy. From the ground, the army was even more horrifying. The refugees had all pushed as close to the walls of Kuallina as they could. The latrine ditches were overfull. Foodstuffs were still coming in by line, but it was heavily rationed. The people called at her as she passed, and she stopped to press her hands to people's heads and hearts and murmur courageous words.
She strode right up to the barrier with exhausted Voralyn at her side while her people looked on. She supposed she looked like a fearless woman as she did it, but in truth she felt nothing as she pressed her nose to the barrier. The misty forces that assaulted them were invisible to her. With all the parajistas from the temples funneled into Kuallina, and the Seekers keeping discipline, they could hold out for a good long time.
But Tulana was the only omajista on the wall now, with Taigan gone and Lilia burned out. Tulana was powerful, but it was the relentless volleys from the parajistas that kept them all safe.
Lilia leaned forward and gestured to Voralyn. Voralyn raised a hand. The air around her compressed a bit more. It was already a bit like soup, here at the front.
"Empress Kirana," Lilia said. "I request an audience."
Her voice thundered out across the army, and met resistance as it encountered various tangles of parajista offenses.
She repeated it twice more. Waited. The first line of infantry on the other side of the barrier raised their heads from their shields. They stood in long rows, waiting for a break in Kuallina's defenses that they could stream through, ever alert.
But no one came forward.
Lilia put her hands in the broad pockets of her tunic.
"They know they can crush us," Voralyn said. "Why should they care to parley?"
Why, indeed?
Lilia chewed her lip. She took another pinch of mahuan root. Long use killed people, she knew. Her mother warned her against it, and the Oras, all of her doctors. But it took twenty years to do it, and Lilia knew she would not make it the twenty years.
She slogged upstairs to speak with the Kai. She entered the great dining hall without announcing herself, and found him speaking in low tones with a broken-nosed woman smoking what smelled like a Tordinian cigarette.
"Their Kai isn't answering," Lilia said.
"Yisaoh has another idea," Ahkio said.
"Yisaoh?" Lilia said. She had heard of the woman, but didn't realize she was in Kuallina.
Yisaoh put out her cigarette on the table. Lilia thought it very rude. "We've held here three weeks," Yisaoh said. "It's the Feast of All Souls in just a few days. I suggest we ask for a cessation of hostilities, and a parley over a banquet."
"Isn't that what I already asked for?"
"We're going to remind her we have something she wants more than Kuallina," Ahkio said.
"What's that?" Lilia asked.
Yisaoh said, "Me."
When Lilia went out onto the plain this time, Voralyn at her side to give her words strength, she said, "Empress Kirana. I am the daughter of Navaa Sona, speaking for Kai Ahkio Javia Garika. We propose a parley on the Feast of All Souls. We have news of Yisaoh Alais Garika."
Three hours later, Kirana sent a messenger to parley.
|
(Worldbreaker Saga 2) The Empire Ascendant
|
Kameron Hurley
|
[
"fantasy",
"LGBT",
"science fiction fantasy"
] |
[] |
Chapter 43
|
Zezili crawled into a nearby cocoon, sliding in its mucus. She grabbed a moldering body and yanked it up against the opening to the cocoon, shielding her from the view of the approaching monsters. She could just peer over the back of the stinking corpse and see the alien women hissing passed her, close enough that she could throw a rock and hit one.
They sniffed the air as they approached. Zezili froze. They swung their heads about. Zezili stopped breathing.
They exchanged rapid-fire clicks and guttural sounds – some kind of language.
Then the gaggle of figures moved on, and Zezili let out her breath.
She needed to find out where Storm had gone when he breached this barrier. Waking up these things was supposed to require some kind of ritual. It was why they brought the jistas. So where had he performed it?
Zezili crawled out of the cocoon and loped across the field, keeping low. She paused often to flatten herself against the ground whenever she heard or saw one of the strange women. She made for what looked like a ziggurat at the center of the anomaly. At first she'd thought it was some plant-plagued hill, but now that she was closer, it was clear it was a building that had been reclaimed by the woods.
The bodies made a neat trail to the structure, and they got fresher. She recognized three women from those she'd brought with her, and one of the Sebastyn jistas. They had lost at least one jista back in that stupid town, Mordid. That left three to do whatever needed doing to wake up these things. How many would it take to put them back to bed?
Zezili found the doors of the temple – was it a temple? A fortress? –open. They were massive slabs of stone. She wasn't sure how Storm had gotten them open. The jistas, maybe? She stepped inside and pushed the arm with the dagger ahead of her. Inside, great bronze mirrors reflected the light from the entrance, spilling in back and back, further than Zezili could see. What she could make out was a broad foyer with a massive ceiling painted in strange geometric figures. The room had six broad exits – not counting the one she walked in from. She saw that the mirrors directed the light to just one of the entrances, at her left.
Inside were more bodies, all less than a week old. The odor was so strong that Zezili's eyes watered. She picked her way across the bodies and made for the archway. As she rounded the corner, she saw another body ahead of her jerking erratically on the floor. A breath of horror escaped her. Then a bloodied face rose from the flopping body: it was some serpentine creature with great black fangs and eyes the color of silver. It had four front limbs. She saw the lash of a black tail. She had never seen anything like it.
Zezili put the wall at her back. The creature rose up. It was at least twice as tall as her. It moved so fast she had no time to retreat. In a breath it was on her. It clamped on her thigh. She stabbed it in the eye. It howled, and released her. She stabbed the other eye. The tail lashed, and caught her across the face. She fell and stabbed it in the torso. It was thrashing now. It was the thrashing that would kill her, that fucking tail—
Zezili stabbed it in the throat. The face came at her again. She batted it away with her left arm and stabbed with her right. The blood was black, and made her skin itch. She hissed. The tail smashed her face. She stabbed at the eyes over and over, splattering black, irritating blood until it stopped moving.
Zezili took great gasping breaths. She drooled into its mashed face, and spit black ichor. She got up, and stumbled past the body. The tail thumped. She hollered at it, kicked it, but it was just reflexive nerves. It flopped on the floor.
She pushed on, deeper into the ziggurat. She was definitely headed below ground now, following the slightly sloping floor. The creature's blood burned her skin. She wondered how poisonous it was, and if she'd be dead before she got to the end of this fucking maze. She spat. The blood made her mouth tingle.
Down and down she went, passing great open doors inscribed with strange writing. They reminded her of the stories she'd heard of Tordinian tombs. The open doors led to rooms the size and shape of her wardrobe at home, and the walls were covered in mucus. She saw great plant-like protrusions covering the interior of each. Like the cocoons outside, the tombs glowed with a faint green bioluminescence. She tried to imagine spending… what? Two thousand, a thousand years cradled in one of those things? This must be where the Empress had buried her kin.
The corridor opened up. Zezili walked into a broad, spherical room. The room was lined in the same sticky tentacles as the tombs she'd passed, and the floor was green. It roiled like something alive, and lights rippled across its surface. She saw what remained of her three Sebastyn jistas on the edge of the pool, their skin charred. At the center of the pool was a great dais, and on top of the dais was what looked like a silver throne made of skulls, all coated in silver. She did not recognize the skulls of the creatures that made up the throne. They looked vaguely human, but distorted. Some had three eyes, or four eyes, and massive bulbous foreheads, and jutting mouths. A few even looked like they had horns. They were some parody of humanity, some dark vision. On top of the throne was Storm, slumped forward with chin on chest. Zezili could not see him well, but suspected he was as dead as the jistas.
"What the fuck?" she muttered aloud, because none of it made any sense. She was not gifted, and suspected there must be some kind of barrier or switch or something she couldn't see.
Zezili looked around for something to throw into the pool, and settled for yanking a satchel off one of the jistas and tossing it in. The pool was not a pool – the bag sat on it like it was a solid surface, disturbing only the light. But it didn't hiss or eat it or burst into flame.
Zezili squared her shoulders and tested one foot on the green surface. She'd come all this way, why stop now? The light flickered, but it was solid. She crept across the surface to the throne and peered up at Storm's body.
She raised her foot to mount the silver steps—
And Storm's head jerked up. He gabbled at her, jerking about like a puppet on a string. Zezili jumped back, shoving her daggered hand ahead of her.
Storm swung his head toward her, and the gabbling became something she could understand. "Do not defy her!"
"What happened?"
"Do not defy her!"
Green bile dribbled from Storm's mouth. His eyes were unfocused. His flesh looked moldered, to her. It had taken on a greenish tint.
"Storm?"
"Do… not… defy…"
His chin slumped back to his chest. The body relaxed, as if the puppet master released the strings.
Zezili stepped gingerly around the back of the throne. The top of the throne was attached to the back wall by a giant, pulsing thread of green tentacles, all fused with the silvery throne. She thought of the Empress's silver throne back in Daorian. Fashioned after this one?
That's when she heard the whispering.
Zezili crept behind the throne and hid under the massive pulsing tentacle. She peered around the other side, back the way she had come.
It wasn't whispering. It was hissing.
The Empress's people were clicking and muttering and sliding down the hall toward her. The shushing sound grew louder and louder.
Zezili thought she might lose her shit then, just dribble out there behind the throne. Her gut churned so bad she wanted to vomit.
But this was what she wanted, wasn't it? Some glorious end, fighting impossible odds?
Zezili pushed her daggered hand forward, and stepped out from behind the throne.
|
(Worldbreaker Saga 2) The Empire Ascendant
|
Kameron Hurley
|
[
"fantasy",
"LGBT",
"science fiction fantasy"
] |
[] |
Chapter 44
|
Maralah had not confined many people to prison. Prison was where a coward put you when they didn't know what to do with you. If she were in Morsaar's place, she'd have had herself killed immediately, the way she'd killed Alaar's heirs and wives and the heirs and wives of the Patron before him. The few she kept alive had to swear fealty to the new Patron within days of the ascension.
But no one asked her to pay fealty. No one came to her.
They locked Maralah in the south tower, with a narrow slit of a window that showed her the sky, three feet higher than she could jump. She spent most of her time sitting at the opposite wall, staring out that window, watching Para move across the sky. It was not a proper gaol – that would have been the lightless passages below. Nor was it some lushly appointed place one would put the loved one of a rival, waiting on a ransom. It appeared to have been a storage room of some sort, hurriedly emptied to accommodate her. She saw scuff marks on the floor, tattered onion skins, and shriveled hasaen tuber stalks scattered across the floor. Someone brought a heavy bear skin up for her the first night. Water and food came up once a day. She expected it would be another sanisi who would look after her, but they simply sent up a slave, a new one each day. They cut a hole in the bottom of the door so they could push it through. The entire affair felt odd, ill-prepared. She had not taken Morsaar for a usurper.
The season dragged on. When she realized they weren't going to kill her immediately, she planned for a long wait. It was entirely possible, if they kept her alive a few weeks, that they'd keep her alive a few months. And that gave Taigan time to answer the fiery ward she'd used to recall him some time ago.
Maralah measured time by the chill in the air, and the extended amount of daylight in the sky. Low spring came and went, became high spring. She listened to the ice melt, the water drain from the roof. She watched Para circumnavigate the sky each day. She started up a routine. Food came in the early morning. After eating, she went through her defense forms, and then basic sword craft. She napped through the afternoon, then played strategy games with onion skins and shreds of bear fur until dark.
Prison left time for contemplation, which was the worst part of it. If she was not careful, her mind could wander to her fate, or Rajavaa's, or the country's. It would lead her to wonder what would happen if they just left her here, abandoned in a cell, while they retreated south to Anjoliaa after all. As the snow melted, she began to wonder if Morsaar meant to stay here and fight, if this was the last stand. But she didn't think a man who couldn't even muster up the courage to kill her had the determination to stand fast in front of the greatest and grimmest army the world had ever known. She spent too much time, perhaps, going over her mistakes. When all one had was time, it was inevitable. If she had come up the stairs just a little sooner, before Kadaan killed Alaar, things would be different. If she had sent out Taigan to find omajistas sooner, perhaps… or moved this legion here and that one there during the first assault… or if she had known the tears in the sky for what they were, maybe, she could have prepared better… but those thoughts did not change her situation. They did not free her from the present. They trapped her in the past.
She was not easily lost to ennui, even now. If she was lucky, they would take her out of here eventually instead of forgetting about her and letting her starve to death. Getting taken out and killed seemed like the best possible result. It also meant that the moment she was out, the moment something changed, she would need to move, and quickly, if she wanted a chance at something other than death. She could rely on no one but herself now, and perhaps the possibility of Taigan, unless he was dead already.
So instead of preparing for her eventual starvation, she prepared for the day the door opened. It was the same way she fought the war with the Tai Mora. You fought for the day it was over, but you got there by fighting one battle at a time. In this little cell, the battle she fought each day was against herself, and her own despair.
It was why she was ready the day the cell door finally opened.
"Hands out," the sanisi said. He was young, not far past twenty. A sanisi did not complete their training until at least twenty-two, but he looked far younger. It wouldn't surprise her if they were pushing them through training faster, here at the end. Two other sanisi stood behind him. Parajistas, all, if she had a guess. Morsaar wouldn't risk moving her with anything less, would he?
"Where are we going?" Maralah asked.
"Hands out," he repeated. The air grew heavy.
She complied. He bound her hands in copper-threaded rope; expensive stuff. Also more difficult to burn through even for a sensitive sinajista, let alone one like her who was in far decline.
The sanisi led her into the hall. She recognized Kovaas and a short, long-faced ataisa named Arakam who had come in with Rajavaa's force.
That left her Kovaas. "I'm fine with dying, Kovaas," she said. "But at least have the courage to tell me so."
He did not look at her.
"Beheading, then?" she said.
He lowered his chin.
She continued marching forward. Beheading wasn't so bad. There were worse ways to die. It surprised her that Morsaar wanted this to be so public. If she were in charge, she'd have killed someone like her with a squeeze of parajista-controlled air and burned whatever was left. A public killing meant he wanted to make a show of his strength. It was fitting, that after all this she'd be killed by her own army. She'd outlived most sanisi. Many died in battle, or during some power shift like this one. Living to forty-three, outlasting her brother, her child, every relative she'd ever known – that was something. Clutching a win from the jaws of disaster. She smiled grimly.
The younger sanisi led, and Kovaas took up the rear. They descended the long spiral of stairs to the massive courtyard below. It was as they entered the yard, the younger sanisi over the threshold, leaving Maralah and Kovaas, briefly, inside, that Kovaas leaned over and said, "Rajavaa is still alive."
Maralah stumbled into the light. The days were brilliant now, still cold, but much longer. The double suns were high in the sky, piercing white. Para rode the western sky, a flaming blue brand. The slap of fresh air filled her lungs. She stared out at a great cutting stone in the yard, and a basket of fresh, bloody heads. A cart of bodies. She did not recognize the man at the stone. From the look of his clothes, he was an infantryman, probably one of Morsaar's.
There were eight more sanisi in the courtyard, two at each door. Maralah thought it a poor use of sanisi, with a Tai Mora army marching for Harajan. At least twenty more regular soldiers lined the parapet overlooking the courtyard. It made her wonder just how many people – how many powerful people – Morsaar planned to kill today, or had already killed. But all she had was Kovaas's whisper about her brother being alive. It was precious little to go on to understand what was happening, or whether or not Kovaas would back her if she bolted.
Maralah considered herself a fair tactician. Her odds, even with Kovaas, a parajista, were poor. Not unless he'd manufactured some grand escape for her, and she could see no reason for that. She glanced back at him. He avoided her look.
"You going to give me a reason?" she said. "Why now?"
"The Tai Mora are outside," Kovaas said. "They asked for blood."
Maralah's skin prickled. "You all know they're liars," she said. "They'll have us kill ourselves, and then come in to finish the rest. You know these Tai Mora. You know what they are."
The young sanisi jerked at her bonds. Maralah headbutted him. He reeled back.
The air grew heavy.
She called for Sina, Lord of the Underworld. Sina's breath came immediately, too easily for a descendant star, then disappeared. She held it under her skin and set her bonds aflame. She twisted at the copper wire while the rope blazed.
Arrows buzzed past her. She ducked and ran back toward the tower. Tripped. Kovaas threw himself in front of her. Took two arrows to the chest. Then a third.
Maralah hunkered behind his body. Shouted, "You know me! You know what they are! They will turn on you."
The words felt foolish, even to her desperate ears. More arrows thudded into Kovaas. She needed to move to cover. The air around her grew thick. She flattened herself against the ground, her only defense against a parajista attack.
As sanisi at the doors opposite advanced, she realized what a stupid way this was to die. Beheading was neat and elegant. Dignified. Now she was just a bear cub flushed into a kill hole. Maralah grabbed Kovaas by the back of his trousers and heaved him with her to the door back to her cell. A tangle of air ripped the coat from his body.
She lost her breath. Heaved again. She tumbled back into the tower with Kovaas, and kicked the door shut.
He was still breathing. Blood smeared his mouth. His eyes were wild. A whump of air thundered at the door.
"Poor thing to die for," she said. "They'll kill me either way."
He gaped something at her. Pointed at the ceiling.
She glanced up, saw nothing. "What's really happening, Kovaas?"
He gulped air, wheezed, "Stargazers. Sina."
Outside the door, someone cried out.
The air became thick as soup. She gasped and grabbed at Kovaas's infused blade. She crawled to the door, like swimming.
Outside, the sky was violet-crimson, as if the sea was on fire. Para still hung in the sky, but it had been joined by a second body, eclipsing it: the mangled, irregularly shaped violet body of Sina. Everyone in the courtyard gaped at it; a miraculous happening, even by the standards of their irregular sky. As Maralah watched, Para flickered in the sky, flashed like a coin, and then simply... disappeared, as if blinking out of existence. In its place, Sina blazed a powerful, eerie purple.
Maralah raised her infused blade to the sky and opened herself to Sina. Blue fire crawled around the Para-infused blade. It spat and hissed at her as she forced Sina's power to subsume that of Para. The blue flames surged, and were overcome with violet mist. Purple heat emanated from the blade.
Maralah laughed, and sang the Song of Unmaking out loud.
|
(Worldbreaker Saga 2) The Empire Ascendant
|
Kameron Hurley
|
[
"fantasy",
"LGBT",
"science fiction fantasy"
] |
[] |
Chapter 45
|
Roh smelled sulfur. The scent was so odd, so unexpected on the rolling white tundra, that he reined in his bear and stopped. He and Luna had gone north for three days before turning south, trying to shake their pursuers. For a week they had moved across a featureless tundra, eating mostly rice. Roh tried to gag down the fish Luna caught, but his stomach rebelled, and he vomited it all up. They had been plodding so long on this featureless land that he knew his brain was bound to start making things up. Roh thought he might be going mad when he smelled the sulfur.
"Behind us," Luna said, pointing.
Roh saw a cluster of dark figures coming around a low snow drift. They had not lost their pursuers after all.
"Why do they care about us?" Roh said. "It makes no sense to follow us."
"The Tai Mora are thorough," Luna said.
Roh turned his bear forward.
"We should be careful," Luna said. "That smell–"
Roh's bear trundled up to what looked like a cliff. Roh halted him, and gazed out over a massive crater so large he could not see its end. In the crater below, roiling pools of bubbling gray water steamed in the frigid air. Tangles of frozen steam glittered on the sides of the crater. Ice coated the branches of scraggly trees like spun sugar.
"Any other way across?" Roh asked, stupidly, because he could see there was not. It stretched on and on, this misty, bubbling crater, like a massive giant had taken a huge bite of the world and left spittle and bile behind.
"I've never been out here." Luna looked over his shoulder again. "They'll follow."
Roh slapped his bear. It snorted at him, annoyed, and flicked its tongue, but obeyed, shuffling over the lip of the tundra and onto the pockmarked crater full of pools.
"Are these boiling?" Roh asked.
"Why don't you test it out?" Luna said.
Roh frowned at him, but it was a fair response. Roh knew he was just making noise. The sound of his own voice was comforting.
Moss and spindly grass grew between the pools, leading Roh to believe the ground, at least, wasn't as hot as the water.
Roh had never seen water boiling on its own before. "Will it kill us?" he asked.
"Not before the Tai Mora," Luna said.
Roh called Para and came up with nothing. It was like sucking at an empty spoon, expecting warm broth and getting a mouthful of air. He pulled again, mouthing the litany instead of just repeating it silently, and Para bled into him slowly, reluctantly. He held the breath beneath his skin and waited. He glanced behind them again, and counted the figures. Five. How many were parajistas? Surely not all of them. Why send powerful people after two... his mind wrestled with what he was, what Luna was, but he had to look at himself the way they would. He and Luna were just slaves, not sanisi, or diplomats, or anything else useful. He had taken on Ora Almeysia, a powerful tirajista, a woman with a star in decline, and since then he had fought the Tai Mora twice – at the banquet hall in Kuonrada and in Shoratau, and he was still alive. He could get them through this.
"I'd say we should hide," Luna said, "but there isn't anywhere to go."
Roh stared across the bubbling pools. The Tai Mora were gaining, and they would not stop until they caught them. He looked at Luna. Luna knew how to survive here, and he'd been carrying Roh all week. What had Roh done for Luna?
The air pressure increased. Roh pulled on Para again. It came sluggishly. He pulled until he seethed with power, then murmured a litany to place a protective wall around the two of them. He saw a blue ball of brilliant light speed toward them from the Tai Mora. It burst against his defenses.
The dogs barked and circled. Roh struggled to keep control of his while maintaining the barricade.
The Tai Mora yelled, and their dogs came after them at a sprint.
Roh made his decision, though fear boiled in his gut. "Go, Luna."
"There's nowhere to go."
"Ride! You have the book. Go."
Luna twisted back and forth between the Tai Mora and Roh.
"If you don't go I'll kill you myself. It's better than what the Tai Mora will do."
Luna hollered at his dog to run. He slapped its heavy flank and they were off across the boiling crater, the bear loping through the spaces between the massive pools.
Roh turned on the Tai Mora and let loose a tangle of Para's breath, a dangerous skein of needled air. It moved so fast it would skewer them alive in half a breath.
Something flashed in the sky at his left. He focused on binding his next attack. His first offense crashed into the Tai Mora defenses. They still barreled toward him, weapons snarling from their wrists. He could see their faces now: grim, determined.
He called Para. Nothing.
Roh concentrated harder. He opened himself to the star, and was rewarded with a thin trickle of breath.
The sky flashed again.
A thunderous boom rocked the air, so hard his dog bolted. Roh fell hard on the ground, and lost his breath.
He gazed into the brilliant lavender-blue sky, blinking rapidly. Was he seeing double? There were two stars in the sky, brilliant blue Para and another – a star not due for a year or more, one he had never seen before, but he knew it just the same.
Purple Sina blazed down at him like a bruise.
And Para winked out.
It happened so quickly Roh thought he dreamed it. But with Para's absence in the sky, he also lost his grasp on Para. All he had of Para now was what he held beneath his skin. He held Para's final breath tightly beneath his skin. He felt it burning him up from the inside. Sina stared balefully down at him, unblinking. One final litany. One left, and then… then he was theirs.
The Tai Mora reined in their dogs. He saw their leering faces, and the slobbering dogs. Roh launched himself up onto one shoulder, rolled over, and reached out to Luna's fleeing form. He whispered the Litany of Protection, and released it just as a searing fire blazed across his skin. He screamed.
When Roh came back to his senses, he saw a woman stood over him waving her hand. The air tensed, though he saw no blue mist. She called a star he could not see.
She called Sina, the ascendant star.
"Wait!" Roh said. "Wait! I have–" What? What did he have to offer them, but his own death? Dance, he thought, dance the way you always do. "I can prove very useful," he said. "I was a slave under the Saiduan. Anything is better than being under them. Anything."
A lie – Kadaan had always been kind – but the idea of slavery, of having his hair cut, his clothing chosen for him, his body pushed and pulled at the will of another, was repulsive enough to add weight to his words. His Saiduan was accented. They must be able to hear it in this voice. But if the Saiduan took him a few years before, he would still have it. It fit his role. He pulled off his hood, showed them his shaved head, and then he pressed his forehead to the warm dirt at their feet, the way Dasai had pressed his head to the floor in front of the Patron.
The woman muttered in that not-Dhai language. Roh lifted his head and watched them talk. The taller woman was on his side. He could see it in her face. But the smallest was leery, and the man wanted him murdered. All it took to know was a look. They weren't stoic Saiduan. They didn't fear showing their true faces.
"I'm no threat," Roh said. He didn't dare try to draw on Para now. Its absence still hurt. He was trembling, feverish, though from fear or the shock of losing Para, he didn't know. No one had told him what happened when one's star descended so suddenly. He should have had months of warning from the stargazers. He felt naked, completely vulnerable, in a way he had not felt since he was a child. Two years of Para's ascendance was a lifetime for him, the difference between ages thirteen and fifteen. At twelve he had gone from a gangly, spit-upon nobody to a boy with a chance at becoming something more, something extraordinary. Without Para, what was he?
They talked on. He pushed them. "I have information about the Dhai," he said. The admission came upon him suddenly, like a sickness. "I can help you defeat the Dhai. I know the Kai's cipher." He almost did vomit, then, but what was he without what he owned? He was dead. Dead right here, obliterated in this roiling, nightmarish land.
No more voices. He watched their faces. They knew what the cipher was, then.
"I know it," he said, bumbling on, trying to buy time – for Luna, he told himself, but really, it was for him, he knew it in his heart. "I can help the Tai Mora, your Kai. I have… all sorts of information about the Dhai." He was sweating, and it had little to do with the warm air.
They conversed amongst themselves. The man turned away. The tall woman pushed toward him. She leaned over him, and he cowered, yes, he cowered in front of her, because even if he could fight, fighting was nothing when the person you faced stood under an ascendant star.
"Get up," she said.
He scrambled to his feet. She towered over him by a head. "I'll do anything you say," Roh babbled. "I'm not dangerous."
The other woman said something. Roh thought it sounded very like something in Dhai about being "pretty." They both laughed.
Heat moved up his face.
The tall woman grabbed his chin. Held it firmly. He didn't resist. She tried to meet his look, but he stared at the ground. Luna would tell him to be meek, to stand down. He would not have tried it with Kadaan, but with the Tai Mora, the people who had murdered every Saiduan from the north sea to Anjoliaa…
She licked his face.
Roh stiffened. He willed himself not to tremble.
"Fine, then," the shorter woman said. "But if you run, you understand? If you run, I will cut you open myself, and fuck your corpse."
Roh worked some spit into his mouth. "I understand."
"Go get the other one," the man said.
When the two women left in pursuit of Luna, Roh sank to the ground. The man stood over him, staring. "If you're lying about the cipher, or your temperament, they will do worse than fuck your corpse."
"I know," Roh said. And he did. Oma knew, he did.
|
(Worldbreaker Saga 2) The Empire Ascendant
|
Kameron Hurley
|
[
"fantasy",
"LGBT",
"science fiction fantasy"
] |
[] |
Chapter 46
|
A prickling skein of power slid across Luna's skin. Luna fell forward, and nearly lost her grip on the bear. Something felt strange, as if she were covered in spider's webbing. She looked back and saw Roh collapsed in the mud, the Tai Mora hunched over him. One of them looked up at Luna, and gestured at her.
A whump of air struck Luna. She toppled. Hit the ground hard. Lost her breath. She rolled right into a boiling, murky pool.
Heat suffused Luna's body, but she did not feel wet. Her face was dry. She sputtered to the surface, splashing. Water rolled off her body in little droplets. She had some kind of protective coating over her. Luna saw the Tai Mora advancing, and gazed across the broad pool. Luna kicked below the surface and swam hard for the other side of the pool, a good forty paces distant. The coating of air around her made her buoyant – staying under the surface was a struggle. She paddled hard for the other side, all the while looking for a root or spur of rock to hold onto, to keep her under and away from their roving eye. Roh must have wrapped Luna in some parajista spell.
Luna came to the other side, exhausted, and glanced back, keeping only her eyes above the water. The steam and roiling bubbles of gas obscured her view, but that was good. It would make it harder for them to see her, too.
Her two pursuers – the others must have stayed with Roh – spoke in loud voices on the other side of the water. Her bear had stopped at the next pool, and watched the Tai Mora with sticky yellow eyes.
The tallest one, broad in the shoulders, gestured across the pool toward Luna. Luna submerged again, treading hard to stay below the surface. She was sweating terribly in the heat; it soaked her clothes, dripped down her face. How long would this spell last? She was going to drown in her own sweat before long. Luna had a sudden urge to urinate. But dying at the hands of the Tai Mora looked a fair bit worse than drowning in urine, right now.
The water was stifling. It was like being stuck inside a cave roiling with steam. Her head crested the top of the water, and fresh air flowed around her skin. She tried to breathe, and sucked in foul-smelling air. The skin was breathable.
She peeked her head up. The Tai Mora were advancing, each taking a side of the pool.
Luna ducked again.
The press of the water made it difficult to breathe, even knowing Luna could. She pushed a single finger to the surface, let it skim the top to refresh her air. Luna took shallow breaths. Waited. She expected hands on her arms, or a great gout of air, yanking her from the water. But Para was descendant now, and they would not use air, but fire. They'd burn her up and leave her a charred husk on the plain.
Seconds ticked by. The air she managed to suck in was warm, but felt stale. She started to hyperventilate. Calm would not come. Luna was drowning, like she had when she fell off the boat in the Haraeo sea as a child – falling, falling into a blackness alive with vast sea creatures larger than any building. Luna thrashed.
But to surface… to surface was death, or worse.
Darkness licked at her; warm and inviting. Her body, starved for oxygen, rebelled. She surfaced.
The protective barrier around her burst.
Hot water soaked Luna's clothes, and dragged her under. She felt no bottom. Luna kicked and clawed for the edge of the pool. She found purchase and hauled herself out. Luna lay on the bank, gasping. She looked for the Tai Mora, but saw no one over the misty swath of the pools. This soaked, she couldn't leave the protective warmth of the hot springs, not until she dried out.
Luna scrambled forward in search of her bear; the bear would have some dry clothes, a blanket, her fire starting kit. She circled the pool once, and saw no Tai Mora, no bear. Luna walked on, fearful to whistle or clap her hands in search of the bear in case the Tai Mora were still close.
No bear.
But she did see the Tai Mora. They were tall figures moving through the mist. She pressed herself to the ground. The air wasn't blistering cold, but it had begun to cool her watery clothes. Luna was already shivering.
The Tai Mora had five bears now. They pulled Luna's and Roh's behind them. She looked for Roh among them, but did not see him before the whole party was swallowed up by the mist.
Luna rolled over and started yanking off her clothes.
She was alone somewhere on the Saiduan tundra, without food, dry clothes, fire, or mount.
As she stripped, she remembered the boat, and the bloated arms of her dead parents.
She had been in worse places than this, and survived them.
Luna wrung out her clothes, shivering in the cool air. She found one of the spindly pines nearby, and hung them out to dry. She unwrapped the book, ensuring it had not gotten wet, then slipped into the warmth of the hot springs. It would take hours for her clothes to dry. It would be night by then.
She closed her eyes. Luna had been in worse places.
If Luna repeated it often enough, she might soon believe it.
|
(Worldbreaker Saga 2) The Empire Ascendant
|
Kameron Hurley
|
[
"fantasy",
"LGBT",
"science fiction fantasy"
] |
[] |
Chapter 47
|
Lilia's first plan had been to serve the Tai Mora their own dead and set the whole table on fire as a massive distraction, believing that was appropriate, but Ahkio's face at her suggestion put that idea to rest. When she found the forsia tubers among Gian's hoarded food, she had a far better idea. Most of the refugees were eating plain rice now and little else, but Lilia proposed they spread out a proper banquet with fresh food shipped in via the Line from the Temple of Tira. If they pretended they were well-stocked and eating well, it told the Tai Mora they were comfortable with a long siege. And the tubers would be just one dish among many.
The Line had become a front of sorts for the battle of Kuallina – the Tai Mora had already severed the lines going to Asona Harbor, Liona, the Temple of Sina, and the Temple of Para, leaving only the routes to the Temple of Oma and Temple of Tira intact. Lilia had Laralyn protecting the remaining two lines. Those who took the second shift were weaker, less experienced. It was only a matter of time before the Tai Mora hit them when the second shift protected them, and then they were completely cut off.
The banquet they planned was one Lilia would have eaten at the temple during the high spring festival season: honeyed fiddleheads, curried yams, caramelized onions and salted weed plantains, marigold blossoms in buttery cilantro rice, soft braided bread braised in garlic, and fried edamame.
For the final dish, she walked with little Tasia along the creek bed running behind Kuallina. The creek was now festering with the piss and shit of the great army, which used it as a latrine. Kuallina itself had a well, so it didn't threaten their own water, but the waste had polluted the stream, killing various types of fishes, toads and other, more delicate creatures, and that made Lilia angry. She had worked personally to oversee the digging of the latrines for the refugees outside the wall. Shitting in a creek was wasteful, irresponsible, filthy.
Her anger made it easier for her to put up with the stink and mess of it on her shoes as she waded in and pulled out the great knobs of the dormant forsia lilies growing on the little islands at the center of the stream. Tasia carried them in a big sack that eventually dragged across the ground. Lilia needed one for every guest, and a half dozen more for practice.
"Never eat these," Lilia told Tasia as she put them in the sack, just as her mother had said to her when she was small.
"But you're going to eat them," Tasia said.
"They are poisonous," Lilia said. "They have to be prepared the right way, and divided up and eaten correctly. Until you learn how, they will kill you. Understand?"
Lilia hauled the forsia tubers back into the kitchens of Kuallina, and stood at the sink with her sleeves rolled up and scrubbed them herself. They had a spiny outer skin and soft, sweet-nutty interior. Lilia liked the idea of serving the Kai and her people some weed that grew in their own shit. Liked it very much.
She cooked one of the forsia tubers in the oven, then called down Gian and the Kai to teach them how to eat the tubers without killing themselves. Yisaoh and Mohrai came down with the Kai, watching him and each other like predatory birds. War had a way of bringing people together.
"This needs to be done correctly," Lilia said, "or it will kill you." She said it in the same tone she'd used with Tasia.
Lilia carefully removed the skin of the root and put it aside. "Don't eat this part," she said. "This next is most important, though." She took the knife and gently tucked it into the center of the tuber, and pulled the knife all the way around its stiff core. She pulled apart the two halves, revealing a sticky black center from which radiated three dark tendrils.
"This whole black center must be removed," Lilia said. "These tendrils, too. You must not eat this part. Not even a taste. It will kill you." She began to de-vein the tuber.
Mohrai examined the skin of the tuber. "We should at least have Ahkio's already cleaned."
"It will give us away," Lilia said.
"What will happen if he dies at that table?" Mohrai said. "It took a year to unite the clans. Succession now, especially after that… performance in the temple, will be contested. This is much riskier than I thought."
Yisaoh shrugged. "Let him do it."
"You would say that," Mohrai said.
"How serious is this poison?" Ahkio said.
Lilia neatly pulled the first black thread away, and set it aside. "An hour, maybe two. They can burst if you don't handle them carefully."
"Can we wash them?" Ahkio said.
Lilia sighed and set down the knife. She wiped her hands on her apron and then rubbed her aching head.
"If we think they will fall without a head," Mohrai said, "their… leader is certainly thinking the same thing. If this doesn't kill Ahkio, sending him down there surely will. I'm having second thoughts about this. It sounds bold here inside, but out there–"
"Kai?" Lilia said. "You thought this a fine idea when I proposed it."
Mostly fine, anyway.
Ahkio folded his arms, tucking his hands under his armpits. It was an annoying, defensive gesture. He looked at the table as he did it, weighing and considering.
Lilia smacked her hand on the table. "Now is not a time to talk," she said. "Now is a time for action."
"I hate to say it," Yisaoh said. "But Mohrai is right. Do you really think you can sit at that table and kill your own sister, Ahkio? We know she's down there. I don't think you can."
Ahkio raised his head. Lilia saw his answer. He was not a ruthless man, not a killer. It infuriated her more than she thought it would. She had given him a way out before, but he insisted on being part of this, and now, when the time came, he became a coward. He would not follow through.
She stared hard at the knife on the table. "I have given a lot of things to fighting these people," she said. "You–"
"Revenge," Ahkio said.
"It's not revenge," Lilia snapped. Reflexive. Of course it was about revenge.
"I'm sorry about what they did to your mother," Ahkio said. "I'm sorry about your world, your village, your leg. But destroying them fixes none of that."
"This is not about revenge, it's–"
"We'll have a banquet," Ahkio said, "without the poison. We'll meet them like civilized people, and accept what happens. The more I've considered this duplicity, the more I dislike it."
"It's the only way," Lilia said.
"Is it?" he said. He seemed disappointed in her. They all did. She was disappointed in herself, too – for failing at the harbor, for burning out, for not telling them. "Ghrasia wouldn't have agreed to this," he said. "It was compassion that had her open those gates for you. The same compassion that would stay her hand now."
"You can't speak for the dead," Lilia said.
Yisaoh interrupted. "We'll do as the Kai says." She pulled a cigarette from a leather case in her tunic pocket. Lilia wondered if she would run out soon, and whether or not she would be so mellow, then.
Lilia picked up the knife and jabbed it into the table. "Fine, then. But I won't be part of it. This was my idea, and this was the only way it was going to work."
"The way it worked at the wall?" Mohrai said.
"It would have–" Lilia stepped away from the table. "Do what you like. This isn't my battle anyway."
She stormed out of the room. Gian ran after her, grabbing at her hand.
"I'm sorry, Li," Gian said.
Lilia pushed away her hand.
Lilia went to her room and curled up on her bed. No one but Gian and Tulana knew she could no longer call on Oma, but even with no power, with nothing but bluster, she was willing to do this: to sit with the leader of Tai Mora and feed her poison and risk the consequences. Because this was their only option. The illusion that shielded the retreating civilians was already going to be difficult to sell after the bold one she had used to cross the great army. She knew her plans sounded extreme, desperate, and they were. But doing nothing was worse.
Gian came in to sit with her, but Lilia yelled at her to get out. She was increasingly agitated now, anxious. She chewed more mahuan root and lay alone in the dark room. Hunger gnawed at her belly, but she did not get up.
Taigan was right. She should have gone to Saiduan. The Saiduan, at least, would do what needed to be done. The Dhai were cowards, just like she had been. They lived fearfully, like she had. But cowards never changed anything. Cowards didn't win.
She didn't remember sleeping, but she must have dozed. She woke to the smell of Tordinian tobacco.
Her door opened, slowly. In the pale light of the moons, she could just make out Yisaoh's long face, the crooked nose.
"I've drugged the Kai," she said. "You and Mohrai are going out tomorrow, with Gian and Mohrai's cousin, Alhina. I'll lead the civilians out while you distract them. Ahkio will go back to the temple, when he's awake."
"What happens when he finds out?"
Yisaoh shrugged. "I'm telling him you drugged him. If you succeed, he'll have to forgive you. If you fail, we'll say you went rogue and manufactured this yourself. Fair enough?"
"But–"
"I know what it is to be driven by revenge," Yisaoh said. "You're the only one of us foolish enough to do this."
The active assault of Kuallina's defenses ceased the day the Empress accepted their parley, but as Lilia stepped through their own still-active parajista shield, her heart hammered so loudly she thought Mohrai, walking beside her, might tell her to turn back for being cowardly after all.
They made an odd party – Lilia and Gian, Mohrai and Alhina. Gian held tightly to Lilia's hand. It sweated terribly in hers, but Lilia dared not let go, not now.
Behind them came the staff who had prepared the banquet. They carried dish after steaming dish.
Two great tables had been moved from Kuallina, and set in a narrow space between the two barriers that protected each of the forces. Behind Lila's side were the refugees, so close she could reach them in just fifty steps. And behind Kirana was her camped army, tent after tent aligned in neat rows, as if a siege were the most normal thing in the world.
Lilia and her companions came up beside their chairs on the dais. The cooking staff spread out the food.
Lilia waited. Gian nervously tugged at her hand. Mohrai coughed a few times, and whispered something to Alhina.
"Will they come?" Alhina asked Lilia.
"She'll come," Lilia said.
They had attracted crowds from both armies. The army on the other side of the table, the Tai Mora, all sat outside their tents, watching. Some stood, sipping tea from metal cups. It seemed to Lilia like an extravagant use of metal.
There was a ripple among the army further back; Lilia followed it with her gaze.
The crowd parted, and two women and two men strode forward. The woman at the front wore chitinous red armor, but no helm. Beside her was a woman wearing a Dorinah-cut dress. The men behind both wore armor as well. The armor was the blue she associated with parajistas. Lilia had wanted to bring parajistas too, but knew that if things went very badly at this table, no amount of parajistas would save her.
The two women at the front she knew. The woman in the armor was the Kai, the one who had attacked her mother with a willowthorn sword while Lilia stood on the other side of the rent between the worlds, screaming. The other was Isoail, the woman who wore Lilia's mother's face here, the one who had happily sent Lilia off to the slave camps before realizing she was more useful than she first realized.
Lilia's stomach knotted. She had to let go of Gian's hand, then, because she was going to grip it hard enough to hurt her.
As the Kai approached, Lilia reached for some sense of calm, the same calm she had when others were grievously injured, and she had to concentrate wholly on their problem. She felt her fear bleed away. Her hands ceased to tremble.
The Kai was just a woman. Women died.
And Isoail… she should not have been surprised that Isoail had switched sides.
Kirana reached her seat. Placed her hands casually on the back of it. "I was promised your Kai, ugly bird," she said to Lilia.
"I am the Catori of Dhai," Mohrai said. "I speak for the Kai. You must excuse his absence. He was called away on other matters."
"He lost his nerve, you mean," Kirana said. She sat in her seat, and waved at the rest of them. "Sit, sit. Let's get this over with."
Isoail sat beside Kirana, but the men did not sit.
Lilia sat opposite Isoail. Mohrai sat opposite the Kai, with Alhina to her right. Gian sat at Lilia's left.
The serving staff removed the covers on the food. The smell of it made Lilia's stomach growl. She had not eaten properly in days. She could not keep herself from looking at the piles of the forsia tubers, their honey-smelling steam dominating the other scents.
"You know I won't eat anything," Kirana said. "I'm not so great a fool as that."
"Eat what you like," Lilia said. "But it's polite here, to parlay over a table, especially during this festival season."
"A festive season." Kirana laughed.
"You and I know one another," Lilia said. She asked Mohrai to pass her one of the forsia tubers. Mohrai raised her brows as if to ask "So soon?" but she passed it nonetheless.
Gian took one as well, though her fingers trembled as she did. Mohrai and Alhina did the same before adding other dishes to their plates – the fiddleheads and rice, the honeyed onions and oily kale.
Kirana touched nothing. Lilia started to panic. If she would not eat, it meant they needed to drag this distraction on a very long time, long enough for the civilians pouring out the back entrance of the temple to make it a good way to the woodlands. Hours, maybe. She could not imagine sitting with this woman for hours.
Kirana tapped her glass. One of the men came from behind and filled it with something from a flask at his hip. "Do I know you?" she said. "I know many people."
"You killed my mother," Lilia said. "So I destroyed your mirror."
Kirana smiled broadly. It was Isoail who looked like she wanted to bolt. "You did?" she said. She drank the amber liquor in her glass. Smacked her lips. "You killed your own mother in the process. How did that feel?"
"I could tell you, if I felt anything anymore," Lilia said, "but I've given that up for embroidery."
Kirana laughed. It sounded like a genuine laugh, deep and long. For a terrible moment, Lilia imagined a world where they could have been friends, or lovers. Different worlds. Different choices.
"Isn't it right that we get along?" Lilia said. "We both love this world."
Kirana smiled. "Let me take a stab. Poisonous, is it?" she said. She pushed at her plate again.
Mohrai and Alhina were already eating, but neither had dared touch the tuber.
"There's nothing wrong with any of it," Lilia said. "You insult me." She began to carefully cut up the tuber. Gian watched her plate, too intently. Lilia should have left her in Kuallina. Taigan had a less easily read expression, but Taigan had abandoned her, and Gian had only run from her. Lilia tried not to smile too broadly as she ate the first bite of the rich, spongy interior of the tuber. It tasted nutty-sweet. Like revenge.
Kirana peered at Lilia's plate. Lilia's stomach squeezed. It was very possible they had the same kind of plant over there. If it was recognized, they'd take Lilia's head now. She may as well take it off herself.
Instead, it was Isoail who took one of the tubers from the plate. She set one on Kirana's as well, and served her rice and fiddleheads too.
Isoail did not exchange a single look with Lilia. She began to cut up the tuber. She removed the skin, as Lilia had. But as Lilia watched her cut it up she noted Isoail missed the translucent, veiny spine of it. The part filled with the poison. Isoail took a careful bite. Rolled it around on her tongue. Her eyes lit up. Surprise. Joy.
"That's very fine," Isoail said. "Just as I always read."
"Yes," Lilia said, though what Isoail was tasting was something Lilia never had. Her mother said forsia was the most delicious delicacy in the world. The most sublime. Unforgettable. The inner, edible tuber was nothing compared to the ecstasy of the poison. And Isoail knew what it was. She ate it gladly. Isoail was not a traitor. She was another captive, with no way out.
Isoail continued eating while Kirana talked. Lilia tensed with each bite Isoail took. Lilia ate her own, de-veined tuber slowly. Each bite tasted like stones now.
"Let's get to the point of this meeting," Kirana said. "I believe we're to have an exchange. What is your proposition?"
"We ask for immediate cessation of hostilities," Mohrai said. "In exchange we are willing to turn over a woman of some interest to you. Yisaoh Alais Garika."
Kirana took a long, slow drink. "Why should I cease this assault for just one woman?"
"If she is of no interest to you, then we are at an impasse," Mohrai said. "We will send her home."
"She is in Kuallina?" Kirana said. Too quickly.
Lilia knew, then. Yisaoh was someone to her. The double of someone close to her.
I know your weakness, Lilia wanted to squeal, but Isoail was washing down the poisoned tuber with more water. Refilling the glass. Extreme thirst was the first sign of poisoning. Lilia could do nothing. Could not speak. Could not yell. This was Isoail's choice. The woman with her mother's face.
"Water?" Gian asked. She was filling their glasses. Lilia nodded absently.
"She has asked for harbor in Kuallina," Mohrai said, "but if we cannot work something out, I suspect she will return to the woodland."
"You'll just turn her over to me, like that?"
"We understand our position," Mohrai said.
"It seems like a very easy choice," Lilia said, "but you can think on it here as you eat. We'll have drinks, after, and decide then."
"I have no interest in dragging this out," Kirana said.
Lilia stopped eating her tuber and picked at her rice. As she scooped a bit of it to her mouth, she saw a black thread in it, right before eating. Her stomach heaved. It was a bit of the poisoned vein of the tuber. She set it back on her plate.
"We are in no hurry," Mohrai said.
Kirana leaned forward. "Is that right? Well, I am. If this is a serious offer, let's say this – you bring me Yisaoh, alive or otherwise, it makes no difference to me, and we withdraw for one hour. We let your civilians leave the fortress. But your jistas and your militia stays. Their lives are forfeit."
"Unacceptable," Mohrai said.
But Lilia wondered, for a long moment, if they should take it. They were here risking their own lives to save those civilians, to give them a few precious hours to escape. Could they not turn over Yisaoh? Yet the Kai would never permit it. Mohrai would know that too.
"That is my offer," Kirana said. "Convenient as it is for you to deliver Yisaoh to me, even if she runs, I will find her eventually. I find all those who oppose me, and I give them a fitting end."
Her gaze swept the table. She made some imperceptible nod and served herself up some kale and weed plantains. Lilia tried not to stare as she poked at the tuber on her plate.
Lilia concentrated very hard on her own food, making a moat around the tainted rice.
Alhina spoke, suddenly, words spilling loudly, "You will love the forsia tuber," she said. "It is such a delicacy."
Lilia stiffened. Fool.
Mohrai said, "I will consider the offer. We will, of course, have to speak to the Kai."
"I doubt that," Kirana said. "You forget we share faces as well as temperaments. My brother was always a coward. I suspect this Ahkio is no different."
"In that, you are wrong," Mohrai said. "He is one of the most compassionate, honest and trustworthy human beings I have ever had the pleasure of knowing."
Kirana raised her brows. "There are some differences, then," she said, and laughed a little as she began to skin the tuber.
Lilia tried to measure how much time had passed since they had left the hold. Nearly two hours? The Kai would be awake now, and angry, but Yisaoh would have already begun the retreat into the woodlands.
"Did you recover many omajistas?" Lilia asked Kirana. "The ones the rebellion sent to other worlds?"
Kirana paused in her peeling. "We recovered a great many," she said. "They were on the wrong side of this conflict, and all of them knew it. It's too bad you yourself burned out."
Mohrai and Alhina turned to stare at Lilia.
Heat moved up Lilia's face. "Why do you think that?" she asked.
"Because Isoail here has had you in a palisade spell this whole time, and you have yet to attempt to counter it," she said.
Lilia met Isoail's look across the table.
Isoail's gaze was warm and very frank. She did not look away as she pulled the black mushy center of the tuber from its heart and pushed it into her mouth.
Of course Isoail knew what forsia was.
Isoail gagged almost immediately. She vomited on the table, so violently it splattered Mohrai and Alhina, who shouted and pushed away.
Lilia pressed her hands to her mouth, but did not move.
Beside her, Gian gagged. She knocked over Lilia's wine glass. Fell to the floor. Began to convulse.
Lilia stared at her, not comprehending. She grabbed Gian's plate and saw the broken tendrils of the of the forsia plant mixing with bits of her rice and fiddleheads. Gian had accidentally eaten it, just as Lilia had almost ingested it herself.
"Gian!" she scrambled after her, and held her in her arms. Gian vomited black bile. It splattered across Gian and Lilia both.
"Parajistas!" Kirana's voice.
The voice that called for the destruction of Lilia's village, for the enslavement of her mother. The voice that would bring the whole world to its knees.
Now that voice would smite her, once and for all.
Something flashed in the sky overhead.
Lilia held Gian's convulsing body close. Black bile oozed from her mouth and nose now, and her eyes were glazing over, so very dark, just like the other Gian… the other Gian… so many Gians, all dead. So many worlds, all dead.
Flickering in the sky. A wash of violent light.
Lilia looked skyward. Two stars blazed in the sky where there had only been Para a moment before. As she watched, Para blinked out, leaving the great purple mass of Sina blaring balefully upon them. A great, thunderous rumble shook the clear sky.
"Gods," Lilia said.
The parajista walls. The barricades around Kuallina. Their entire defense relied on Para's breath.
Kirana started shouting again, a different order. She had left the platform. Mohrai and Alhina, too, had fled, running back toward Kuallina through the broken barricades.
"Sinajistas! Raise the flags! Raise the flags! Burn that fucking hold down while it's vulnerable!"
Lilia held Gian a breath longer. She ran her fingers through Gian's long, silky hair. On the other side of the table, she saw Isoail's prone form covered in black bile. They were the only three still on the dais.
Lilia – ungifted, forgettable once again. Her greatest gift was appearing too ordinary and powerless to bother killing when there was a whole defenseless stronghold at one's mercy, and she had already murdered all of her greatest allies.
|
(Worldbreaker Saga 2) The Empire Ascendant
|
Kameron Hurley
|
[
"fantasy",
"LGBT",
"science fiction fantasy"
] |
[] |
Chapter 48
|
Heat and darkness. Roh saw the world in bands of color: blue lavender sky, the white slash of the tundra, a yellow wrap against a woman's brown skin. Voices in Dhai, and then not-Dhai. It was a language so close he felt he must know it. Maybe he didn't understand it because he was stuck in some kind of dream. Some nightmare.
He thought ascending to Sina would be faster and less confusing. But the journey continued while he shook and sweated and screamed at bulky violet apparitions bleeding great gouts of orange light from their mouths.
When his fever broke, he was unsure of the season. He wasn't even certain where he was, until he heard one of his captors say, "Caisau." They were so far north that seasons felt meaningless. All he knew was that most of the snow was gone. It persisted only in rotten patches in the shade of stunted undergrowth. He saw no trees this far north, but the implacable tundra was gone, too, replaced by jagged pillars of stone that snarled up from the rocky ground like the teeth of some band of snarling animals. He knew they were in Caisau because it was the only word that his captors spoke that he understood.
Roh spent a long time trying to work out their language every night, peering at their mouths and gestures. It was close enough to Dhai that he should have taken to it easily, but some terrible thing in him had shifted, and now the world looked very dark, and every task seemed difficult. Even though the days were absurdly long, he found it hard to wake up in the morning before he was kicked. He wanted to sleep forever.
The first time they tried to humiliate him, throwing stones at him until he took off his clothes and ran from them as they wanted; too weak to go far and easy to capture again, he cried when they caught him and beat him. It should have been easy to fight them, if he had a full stomach and Para at his call – but Para was lost to him, and he was so weak and exhausted he could barely lift his head most days. Whatever sickness had burned through him, it took much of his strength with it, and the pace they kept did not let him recover properly.
Caisau rose up from the snarled pillars of the rocky landscape, a massive living hold so breathtaking that even Roh – in his depressed, exhausted state – felt a surge of awe. Caisau, once called Roasandara, the seat of the Dhai two thousand years before. It was like stepping into some history book. They broke through the forest of pillars and onto a wide bowl of stone like a shallow crater. Caisau was made of dozens of linked domes and spiraling towers that encircled a central dome so great it seemed to touch the sky. The skin above the great red sandstone walls was blue-green, and shimmered like the skin of the Dhai temples. Far past the vastness of Caisau, he saw the sea, still bobbing with great icebergs, and a harbor filled with bone boats that looked like crooked finger bones.
Around the walls of the hold were artisan houses, merchants' stalls, and homes made from the same brown stone as the jutting pillars. For a city the size of Caisau, it did not seem very busy. As they moved through the great main streets, tiled in red stone, he saw why – there were no Saiduan here. They were all Tai Mora. A few looked up as their party passed, but most ignored them, faces open and boisterous. Roh had only seen the worst of their soldiers, but these were clearly civilians, or at least soldiers out of armor, and the way they laughed and carried on business brought tears to his eyes because it was like walking through some other world where the Dhai had never lost Caisau.
The Tai Mora had come home.
His captors brought him through the great shuttered eyes of the round gates. He kept thinking he would see signs of Dhai culture here, some art style or architecture that he recognized, but the fortress was completely foreign to him except for the living skin of it. Massive creatures carved from red stone and smoothed nearly featureless by wind and time leered at him from the walls. Some of the frescos had clearly been defaced and redone. They carried stories of Saiduan battles, not Dhai ones.
They passed into a foyer so high it made Roh dizzy to gaze up at it. The ceiling was patterned in green and blue geometric shapes, faced with mirrors that spilled light from its windows all across the floor.
His captors conferred with a tall, regal woman in a bulky fur lined coat stitched in silver. She sat behind a bronze podium speaking to two pages. They argued for some time. The woman peered around them at Roh.
The woman was Tai Mora, but the pages or servants or assistants or whatever they were didn't look like Tai Mora. They were finer featured, paler, with brown hair and yellow eyes.
"We'll wait here a few minutes," one of his captors, the broad, pocked-faced woman they called Kosoli, said.
"Longer than that," the man, Borasau, said.
The group of them sat against the far wall on a ring of benches. The little brown-haired assistants brought them tea and sweet cakes. Roh was starving, and they let him eat. He hated that he was so grateful for it.
An hour passed, maybe two, before one of the servants came back and called them further up into the hold.
They climbed through broad, open halls filled with light. How the hold could be so filled with light and still so warm, Roh was uncertain. Servants and official-looking people moved past them. He passed great libraries, most of them empty. The empty libraries were the only sign that there had been any sort of violence or upset here at all. The Tai Mora had held Caisau for nearly two years now, and must have cleaned up much of it after the invasion.
The assistant came to a great glass door. The light was so bright that Roh squinted. This time of year, it would hardly get dark at all this far north. They entered a warm, humid atrium so vast it felt like walking into the open air.
Roh stared upward. They were under the massive dome at the center of the hold. All around them were huge, broad-leafed trees and twisted vines with leaves larger than Roh's head, full of tangling gardens of flowers and fleshy succulents that Roh had no name for. He sweated in his coat, and peeled it off. The others did the same.
The servant led them through the meandering gardens. Roh heard the sound of running water. They passed a massive waterfall poking up from a clotted nest of vegetation. It sprayed a cool mist. Little birds flitted about the flowers. Yellow and orange birds, birds with stalks for eyes, birds with great long threaded tongues that they used to sip at the flowers. Birds with claws at the ends of their wings. Birds… so many birds…
They rounded the waterfall and came to the center of the atrium and a little park. Silver benches lined the walkway. A blue patterned walk made a large circular path at the center. In the center grew an enormous petrified bone tree so tall it blotted out much of the light. Roh gaped at the massive skulls. They had come from creatures with heads as big as he was. Bones twice as tall as him made up the trunk. The tree was as big around as six people standing side by side. He saw shapes moving up and down its length – tree gliders hopping quickly from bone to bone, branch to branch. That's how he knew it was petrified, not alive. It would have eaten them all, and him too, if it still breathed.
Sitting across from the tree was a wizened old man. The servant came to him, bowing so low Roh thought her head might touch the ground.
Roh's captors met him and they, too, bowed. As Roh reluctantly got to his knees to do the same, he met the man's look, and froze halfway into his bow. He coughed or cried, he wasn't sure which.
The man peered at him with black eyes in a heavily wrinkled face, a face with just one expression, an expression Roh knew well.
It was Dasai, his dead mentor.
Roh huffed out a breath and struggled to his knees, because saying Dasai's name aloud won him nothing. He pressed his head to the floor so the man could not see the tears streaming down his face. The stone floor was very cool. He pressed his palms there too, and did not raise his head even as the man spoke to their captors, talking in Dasai's voice – his Dasai – but in the language of the enemy, the people with their faces.
"Look up at me, boy," Dasai said in Dhai now, and Roh rubbed his face and did what he was told. He looked at the man whose head he had watched hacked from his body.
"You know the Kai cipher?"
"Yes," Roh said.
"We have books here in the Kai cipher," Dasai said. "I expect you can get to work translating those for us."
Roh wondered how they knew the books were in the Kai cipher, and how those books had gotten to Saiduan, but decided fewer questions were better. He would translate them from the cipher into Dhai, and presumably someone else would translate them from Dhai into Tai Mora. That was a tremendous amount of work for a few old books. The Tai Mora had one advantage above all else, and that was that there were more of them and those they had subjugated than any other nation Roh knew. Why had he ever thought they had a chance against these people?
"Can you do that?" Dasai said, more forcefully this time.
Roh had been staring right through him. "Yes," Roh said. "I can do that."
"Good. You'll be bathed and given suitable clothes." He said something else to his captors in their dialect, and Borasau nodded and said something in the affirmative.
Roh needed to learn their language, but it was like picking flies out of honey. His mind didn't want to tangle with them.
His captors stood, so he scrambled up as well. Once they left the atrium, they chattered among themselves, seemingly in good spirits.
Borasau pushed Roh away from the group as they rounded a turn, and told him to sit on a bench. "Someone will come for you," he said. He took a chain affixed to the wall. It was attached to a collar.
Roh jerked away from him when he saw it, but Borasau caught him. He clipped the collar around Roh's neck, patted his shoulder, and left him.
Roh shoved his hands under his thighs and waited. He needed to urinate, badly, and there was nowhere to go. Twenty very long minutes later, a tall woman wearing a long skirt and fur-lined leather tunic arrived. She had a high forehead, a twist of dark hair, and kept licking her lips.
"Dhai?" she said.
He nodded. "I'm told I should–"
"I know what you're here for," she said. "I'm to get you cleaned up. My name is Vestaria. We can do this kindly, or madly. Which way is up to you. I'm going to take off this collar and replace it with a warded one. The ward won't permit you to leave the hold. You understand?"
He nodded. He knew what wards did.
"Lovely," she said. "If you struggle, if–"
"I have to urinate," he said, too quickly. "Please. I'll do whatever you ask. Just let me piss in some place properly."
His captors thought it funny when he pissed himself.
Her face softened. Pity. He saw it in her face and guilt roiled over him, guilt that he had come so far, and done so much, but was happy to do whatever some foreign force wanted of him, some evil people killing his, if only they would let him piss in a pot instead of on himself.
She clipped on the new collar, a leather one that chafed. It was too tight. Swallowing was uncomfortable. She led him to a latrine and he urinated sitting on it like a real human being, and even though she was right outside the door he let himself cry, just once, because he feared he wouldn't get another chance.
Then she led him to a bathing room and scrubbed him clean like a child and helped him dress in new clothes.
"You are no doubt exhausted," she said, "but I'm afraid you must come to the libraries now. It's time to earn your breakfast."
Roh expected her to take him to the libraries they had passed before, but she took him deeper into the hold instead. Deeper and deeper until they arrived at a set of double doors, already peeled open to reveal a vast room.
He stepped inside and gaped, for all around him, as far as he could see, were shelves and shelves of books. And, at the center of the room, milling about the shelves, were hundreds of collared slaves like him, not just Dhai but other people, too, from Dorinah and Tordin and Aaldia, and maybe other places he hadn't heard of. Roh turned to Vestaria, trying to form a question.
"The ciphered books are here," she said, leading him to a table already occupied by three other slaves, all Dhai. "These have worked on them for some time, but they were not as close to the Kai. I do hope you're telling the truth, boy, because there is much work to do."
The table was stacked with at least a hundred and fifty tomes, great things bound in green and black leather, each as thick as his palm was wide.
"All of these…?" Roh said.
She patted the top of the nearest stack. "Two thousand years of Kais kept records here," she said. "Let's hope for your sake that the Kai cipher hasn't changed much. Get to work."
She walked off.
Roh felt he should introduce himself to the others at the table, but they did not dare look at him.
Roh's hand trembled as he picked up the book nearest him. He opened it. And there were the familiar Dhai characters. He traced his fingers down the first column. They were nonsense words as written. He grabbed at one of the blank books at the center of the table, and picked up a squib of a pen. Counted out the letters as he would for the cipher, and wrote the first sentences in clear Dhai:
We lost sixteen ships today, and whatever it is that's falling from the sky is getting closer. The creature of Caisau tells me we are too late.
He laughed softly.
All that time they worked in Kuonrada, and the Saiduan had lost much of what they needed during the taking of the first city, the first incursion. They would never have been able to unravel all this, though, if Roh had not come here, if Roh had not tried to make his own fate.
Too late, Roh thought. They were all too late. He stared out at the massive library swarming with scholars, and thought how foolish the efforts that he and Dasai and Kihin, Aramey and Chali, had made looked by comparison. They had always been a hundred steps behind the Tai Mora.
He pulled the book into his lap.
The creature of Caisau.
|
(Worldbreaker Saga 2) The Empire Ascendant
|
Kameron Hurley
|
[
"fantasy",
"LGBT",
"science fiction fantasy"
] |
[] |
Chapter 49
|
Maralah yanked the souls from every living thing in the courtyard. The shrieking filled her ears. Purple blasts of Sina's breath enveloped the unprepared sanisi and infantrymen. There was no time for them to run. Morsaar had sent only parajistas for this task, and that left her the most powerful person on the field. She spared just one, a skinny tirajista who she wrapped in a field of violet flame.
She pointed at Kovaas. "Let's bring him back."
The tirajista shook his head. Maralah urged the purple flames closer. Burned at his heels. "You'll spend the rest of the war encased in this weapon otherwise. You understand?"
He spat at her. "I am a sanisi," he said.
"So you are." She yanked his soul from his body. The wispy lavender essence of him came free, and the flesh that remained crumpled. Her weapon consumed the soul's energy.
With enough souls at her command, she didn't need any allies. The last known sinajista who could manipulate souls the way she could died a decade before. So long as Sina rode the sky, she was the most powerful person in Saiduan.
Maralah clung tightly to her weapon. It was not a willowthorn branch, so it would not respond to her touch. It did not slide around her wrist, nor would it hold Sina's power indefinitely. These souls would bleed out in days if she didn't use them.
Good thing she didn't expect to hold onto them that long.
Maralah called Sina and held a wave of power beneath her skin as she marched across the courtyard. She burned the infantry in the hall, then the three sanisi who charged at her. The shock on their faces warmed her stomach. She was a filthy, stinking wreck, her hair a matted tangle. As they burned around her she found her face had taken on a grinning rictus. The small muscles of her face hurt.
She made her way to the Patron's wing, burning as she went. It was two floors before she met resistance. Two sinajistas put up a wall of purple flame that singed her clothes. She flashed up her willowthorn sword in broad arc, sending a wave of fire out in turn. Their sinajista-spun defenses tangled in the narrow corridor, sparking and hissing.
Maralah cut her way forward, calling wave after wave of Sina's breath and twisting it to her will. The door to the Patron's quarters was locked and warded. It was an old sinajista ward she had put on herself for Alaar. She untangled it now with a deft tug of six long threads. The door was locked. She blasted it open with a burst of purple flame. Eight sanisi stood ready, flanked by twenty members of the Patron's broodguard. Four of the sanisi were wrapped in purple mist, sinajistas ready to unleash a final defense.
She pushed forward a wave of purple fire and held it just inches from their faces, because she saw something there that gave her pause. Three of the sanisi were hers, or had been, months ago.
"Is Driaa behind you?" Maralah said. "I have something special for her."
The sanisi and broodguard stood with weapons raised.
"Is Rajavaa alive?" she asked.
Sovaan, a tall man at the far end – one of hers – said, "Maralah, it is Patron Rajavaa who said we must keep you from this room."
Maralah admitted she'd had months to consider that possibility. Morsaar was not a usurper. He didn't have the gall. He had done all of this at Rajavaa's order, which is why she'd been left alive this long instead of killed immediately.
So typical. So Saiduan. So be it.
"And who is your Patron, Sovaan, when Rajavaa is dead in a month?"
This was the moment. The moment she had avoided all her life. Or perhaps the moment she had been building up to all these years. She was too old for this, and she knew it. She should have moved twenty years before, instead of holding Alaar's hand.
"I'm going to burn this place down around me," Maralah said. "If you're too young to have seen me do it before, you'll see it now."
Three submitted, and bowed their heads. The rest she killed. While they smoked she said, "I need a sinajista and a tirajista to raise a man from the dead in the yard," she said. "Kovaas, you know him?"
Two sanisi pulled away at the end and trotted down the stairs.
"Hold this position," Maralah said to the last. He bowed.
She pushed open the door to Rajavaa's room.
Rajavaa lay halfway off the bed, weapon clutched in his swollen hand.
Morsaar swung from her right, leaping out from behind the door. Maralah skewered him through the gut. She kicked him off her weapon, and strode to Rajavaa's side.
Rajavaa should not have been alive. She'd half suspected Kovaas was luring her into some bigger plot. But no.
"Rajavaa, you fool," she said.
"Morsaar!" he gasped.
"You could have asked me to leave," she said. "It would have suited me better than prison."
"You'd… never leave… never. Let them come… for me. You killed him. You…"
"We're not all going to die here, Rajavaa."
"Morsaar," he said. He clawed at the sheets and began to weep. The weeping became coughing. Blood spattered his beard.
"You're not getting out of this so easily," she said. She yanked the bedding up and bound him in it. He was so weak he hardly struggled. She knotted him up at the chest and the feet.
The door opened. She tangled a breath of Sina into a protective wall, but it was only the returning sinajista and tirajista, dragging Kovaas with them. But he was still very dead. They dropped him on the floor.
"What is this?" Maralah asked.
The sinajista bowed. "I don't have the skill. I've never… seen Sina rise."
Maralah waved them both over. She knelt next to Kovaas's body. "You've done a resurrection?" she asked the tirajista.
Another shake of the head. Of course not. They were both barely into their twenties.
"I can get his blood flowing again. I'll pull his soul back into his body." She tapped her weapon. "It's stored here. When I do that, he'll just die again unless you heal up the worst of the wounds."
"Tira is descendant. I'm not sensitive."
"Then you'll work harder," Maralah said. "You don't have to heal everything. Just the killing blow. You understand? Start now."
The tirajista's hands moved over the body.
Maralah placed her blade on Kovaas's chest and knelt before him, calling on Sina deeply, until purple mist suffused her whole body. She expelled the breath, and sang the Song of Dead, the Song of Unmaking, the Song of Souls, lacing each spell together with deft, delicate accuracy. She had feared that to lose Sina for so many years meant losing her knowledge and skill with it, but some things were learned by the body and the mind, and what the mind forgot, the body remembered.
She pulled the strength of the souls from the blade and into the meshed spell of resurrection she had created, then let go of it.
Kovaas's eyes opened. He gasped. Arched his back. Screamed.
The tirajista jerked away from him.
"Mend the wound!" Maralah said.
The tirajista concentrated hard, muttering several songs Maralah knew now by heart, after years on the battlefield bringing back the dead.
Finally, the tirajista sat back, spent. "That's all I can do," he said.
Kovaas lay panting on the floor. Maralah took her blade from his chest and peered at him. Sometimes the dead came back bad. Sometimes it was too late.
"You know who you are?" she asked.
"Maralah," he said, breathless. He gazed at her as a man would gaze at his ascendant star.
"You," she repeated. "Tell me your name."
"Kovaas," he said. "I… you've brought me back."
"Come up now," she said. "I need you to help me." She glanced at the other two sanisi. "What of the Tai Mora army?"
"We can see them from the walls," the sinajista said. "A few hours at best. Coming from the northeast."
"No flanking force to hem us in?"
"Runners say no. Just one force."
"Take six slaves. Twelve sanisi. Twenty infantry. Rally those and meet their force?"
"We've got those invaders a few hours from the gates. They'll see this as running."
"It's preserving the line."
"The Patron wanted to die here."
"Now he doesn't. Do you?"
The sinajista glanced over at the rolled-up form of Rajavaa, wriggling and grunting on the cold floor. "I'll rally them."
"You too," Maralah told the tirajista. "We'll be here."
She waited until they'd gone, then told Kovaas they were retreating.
"Help me take the Patron," she said.
"The others?"
"Just us," she said.
He was still too weak to help her with Rajavaa, so Maralah hoisted her brother over her shoulder. He was much lighter now, but she was not in the best shape after months in prison. She kicked open the latch that opened up the panel near the mantle. A wedge opened up, just big enough for her to huff Rajavaa into it and squeeze after him. She closed the secret door behind her and took Rajavaa by the ankles. She dragged him down the long, dark hall. She had been this way only once before, with Alaar, during an attempted coup. It was a long way to freedom from here.
Maralah dragged him for a good hour, down stair after stair, until he stopped struggling and she was dripping with sweat. Kovaas was finally able to help her toward the end, and it made the going easier. She had no supplies and only the glimmering of a plan. Getting the others to rally a small group, thinking she was waiting on them, bought her time. By the time they realized she had gone off on her own, the Tai Mora would be at the gates, and they would have bigger problems than her.
She collapsed at the entrance to the long tunnel at the bottom of the hold. Kovaas went to scout ahead to ensure the tunnel was clear. She had another mile to drag him. Her whole body shook, and she was breathing hard. She leaned against the wall. Listened to Rajavaa mumble. She pulled back the sheet from his face.
"Thirsty," he said.
"Not taking liquor with us."
"Let me die."
"Not a chance. I can resurrect you now, you know."
"And I'll die again. I'm not… your monster."
"That's precisely what you are," she said.
"Usurper."
"That's the best you have? All these months you imprisoned me, and that's all you came up with?"
He spat at her. Misty flecks that merely wet his own face. Fresh air moved over them, coiling down through the passage.
"Cheer up, brother," she said. "We're going to Anjoliaa. Taigan will meet us there. Just as I promised."
"Too late."
She showed her teeth, gritting them so hard her face hurt. "Feel free to die as much as you like on the way there. Over and over and over again. I'll bring you back, Rajavaa. And then Taigan will heal you."
"I want to die… with Morsaar."
Maralah covered his face back up. He mumbled at her. She stood. "I wanted to stay out of prison," she said. "We don't all get what we want."
She took him by the heels again, and dragged him into the dark, damp corridor after Kovaas.
|
(Worldbreaker Saga 2) The Empire Ascendant
|
Kameron Hurley
|
[
"fantasy",
"LGBT",
"science fiction fantasy"
] |
[] |
Chapter 50
|
"Wrong," Korloria said, and slapped Roh's hands with a switch. He sat with the other hundred captive translators in a huge dining hall while Korloria and three other attendants walked their lines, ensuring everyone's hands were in their laps, attention fixed forward. When the four attendants were pleased with the captives' behavior, they went to the high table and hit a gong, signaling that it was time to eat. The translators attacked their food as if it were their last meal, and sometimes it was. By the time Roh ate that first meal, he had not eaten in nearly a day. He wolfed it down so fast it nearly came back up again.
Hierarchies thrived on ordered systems. Roh had learned that in his classes on governance. The system that controlled Roh and his fellow captive translators was a perfectly structured one, even though it must have been less than two years old. A gong woke them before dawn. He learned that he could not talk to anyone without punishment, so he learned the routine by watching them. The few voices he did hear were after dark, hours after bed check, when some of the more rebellious dared to exchange whispers.
He made his bed and washed his face and put on his clothes the same way everyone else did. They wore the same drab gray robes, like temple drudges. The gong signaled every new task: get to breakfast, tea and hard bread. Get to the library for six hours of research work. Break for more tea and hard bread and half a citrus fruit of some kind. Six more hours sitting in hard chairs with dusty books. Gong for dinner, meat and vegetables, which Roh didn't eat for the first week, until hunger overcame him and he choked down the dead animal flesh with the same abhorrence he would have had for eating his own vomit. Gong for bed. The monotony made him want to crawl out of his skin.
His escape from the drudgery lay in the texts themselves, the records of some Kai two thousand years dead who talked to him of a Caisau that was much warmer than this one, almost tropical. She talked of great frilled fishes in the sea. Massive land animals that moved across the tundra in the thousands, so large that just one of them fed the people of Caisau for a week. And cities… she spoke of cities spiraling out across what was then a semi-tropical plain. What he knew of geography and weather confounded her accounts, because it seemed impossible that a continent this far north could ever be warm, but what did he know of the world before it broke?
He brought his translations to Korloria at the end of each day, and she took them without comment. One day two of the translators got into a fight in the archive room. Roh raised his head, so shocked that anything different was happening that he didn't react for a full minute.
Then he leapt up and ran to the tussle. Two middle-aged women wrestled on the floor; the larger, dark-haired one had the smaller one in a chokehold, legs locked around her torso. She yelled obscenities. Roh recognized the language as Saiduan, or some dialect of it. He made out something about cheating, or falsifying records, and then Korloria moved through the masses, and everyone ran away, back to their desks. They were faster than Roh. He didn't take the hint.
Korloria wiped her fingers at the two on the floor and they screamed, broke away, and writhed on the floor as if being flayed. Roh bolted back to his desk then, and sat hard in front of his books while they screamed and screamed.
At day's end, when Korloria took his translated pages, she smiled at him and said, "Your keepers said you were a fighter. What do you think of how we manage fighters?"
"It's efficient," Roh said. He did not meet her gaze when he said it.
That night, at dinner, Korloria clapped her hands before the start of dinner and announced they would have a bit of fun.
"Since you all enjoy fighting so much," she said, in Saiduan, "let's have real stakes. That's what you all wanted, isn't it? Some excitement."
She called the two women from the day's fight over, and brought them up in front of the high table.
"End your disagreement here," she said. "I can throw you both in confinement for three weeks, or one of you can kill the other here, now, and have an end of it."
The women shifted their feet. Exchanged looks.
Korloria threw a cup of tea at them. Roh flinched. What was she getting at? What was the point?
"Or I can kill you both here," Korloria said. "Fight! Go on!" She flicked her fingers, and both women bowed over in pain.
Roh turned away and stared at his plate. This is not my fight, he thought, over and over again, while the women keened. He heard one throw up her dinner.
Quiet, Dasai had told him. Be quiet, Roh. Bow. Subservience. He had never been so good at being quiet.
Roh leapt up from the table. "Enough!" he said. He strode toward the high table, already tense, anticipating Korloria's counterattack. "You want someone to fight? Why don't you fight me?"
Korloria squeezed her fist. The women crumpled like rag dolls, dead on the floor.
Roh stopped halfway to the table. All eyes were on him.
"On your knees," Korloria said.
She came down from the high table. "Kneel," she said. "Know your place."
"Fuck you," he said. Saiduan had the vocabulary for it. Dhai didn't.
She squeezed her fist.
His knees popped. He heard it before he felt it. He was on the floor before the pain registered, before he understood what had happened, before a sledgehammer of fiery needles shot through his knees. He squealed, a horrible sound like some dying animal. He couldn't believe it came from his own throat.
Korloria stood over him, expression bemused. "This is what happens to those who fight."
"Confinement" was a concrete box in the ground in some forgotten courtyard. They threw him down there for six days. He knew because he could see the suns rise and fall. Night was only four hours now. The searing pain in his knee was so bad, so deep, he could not sleep. On the sixth day they hauled him out and brought him to a doctor who chewed her lips and clucked her tongue and spun some tirajista trick that she said would heal him faster, but then they put him back in the box, and he was there another two weeks lying in his own shit and piss. They hauled him out once a week, hosed him down, and tossed him in again.
It was during his confinement that he began to hear the voices. Whispers, first. Then laughter. Sometimes he gripped the bars of the top of his cage and tried to break them. He spent a long time just screaming. He screamed that he was mad, hurt, thirsty. He screamed that he knew things, and that he was important. He screamed because he needed to convince them that his life meant something.
He couldn't walk without help when they pulled him out. The doctor proffered a crutch. When he came back to the library, no one looked at him.
Korloria was there, though, smiling. She brought him a stack of books. "It's a shame," she said, "a boy so pretty, so fragile. It's lucky you have such a talent with these, or we'd have had no further use for you."
He just stared at the stack of books. He had missed the books. He had missed going somewhere else. Anywhere else. Roh opened them and began to translate again, though it was slow going. He was not well. He had a low fever, and the pain in his knees was constant, even when he wasn't trying to walk; a cold nerve pain. He lived in dread of the idea of walking, fearing with every step that bubbling pain would get worse. And it did, sometimes.
The creature of Caisau says the invading armies will not cease until we shut the way between the worlds, but these transference engines she references aren't on any map. I think she's as mad as we are.
Roh woke that night to the sound of squealing laughter. He lay awake in the dormitory, fists clenched in his sheets. The squealing continued, but it wasn't coming from inside the dormitory. It came from behind him. Behind the walls.
Roh pressed his hand to the wall. The warm skin of the hold seemed to sigh at his touch. He felt the tremulous vibration of the laughter. He pushed himself closer to the wall, and pressed his ear against it.
The laughter became a voice, young and high, like a precocious child.
"Where are you, Patron? Why have you not asked after me? Do you not love me? I love you."
Roh shivered and moved away from the wall.
A few days later he turned over his pages to Korloria and she said, "Stay here, you. You'll come with me. Keeper Dasai wishes to see you."
He limped after Korloria down the long hall, expecting she would take him back to the great atrium. Instead, they stayed there in the library until all the other translators had gone. She told him to sit at his desk. He did.
Dasai entered from the front door, walking confidently toward their table. Two tall, robed women accompanied him.
"You have translated a good many books, boy," Dasai said, and sat easily beside him at the table. "The work you've done has pleased us."
Roh tensed, uncertain what new horror they were cooking up. When he had first arrived, all he wanted was a shift in the monotony. Now he knew that any change in routine led to something terrible.
Roh just nodded, knowing the likelihood that he'd say something stupid that would ultimately lead to more pain.
"So after all this translation, what is your opinion of this Kai, this woman who wrote all these diaries?" Dasai asked. "Trustworthy accounts, do you think?"
Roh wet his mouth. He looked at Korloria, trying to find some guidance, but she just smiled.
Roh said, "I'm just trying to do as you tell me."
"And now I'm telling you to think," Dasai said. His eyes were black, the gaze piercing. It was so like the look Roh's Dasai gave when he was scolding him that Roh had to stare at the floor. "Was she a mad woman?"
"The temples in Dhai are living things," Roh said. "Maybe these holds are too. Maybe they used to talk to her. Maybe she wasn't so mad."
Dasai leaned forward. "And why is it they won't talk to us, boy?"
The words bubbled up, "Because you're not Dhai."
Dasai smiled as if he found the idea amusing. "That's quite likely," he said. "Tell me, how is it you're so good at translating these books. Not every Dhai knows the Kai cipher."
"I knew the Kai," Roh said, and came up with the rest of his lies on the spot. "I spied on him, his papers, and I learned it. It was on a dare." Lies came easily when you spent most of your time with nothing to do but come up with stories and translate those of others.
Dasai glanced at one of the robed women beside him, a tall woman with large hands and a lopsided face. Roh couldn't tell if she had been born with her face that unbalanced or if it was the result of an injury.
They spoke briefly in the Dhai dialect. Roh had gotten better at understanding it; many of the other translators spoke it.
"I told you it would be easier to tap into the heart of Caisau with a Dhai," Dasai said.
"There is no discernible difference between us and them," the woman said. "It should make no difference to who can hear the heart and who can't. This boy must be a relative of the Kai. It's all that makes sense."
"I've heard it said the King of Tordin can pick out those from neighboring worlds. Clearly some can see a difference between us."
"I've heard there are bears who can fly," the woman said.
Dasai laughed, a boisterous bark of a laugh so happily unguarded that Roh marveled at it. His Dasai had never laughed like that.
Dasai turned back to Roh, and said in Dhai, "If you were a relation to the Kai, it would make you very valuable to us. There's no danger in admitting the truth."
"I'm not," Roh said. "I wish I could say I was, but I'm not."
Dasai slapped his knee and stood. "Ah, well," then, in the Tai Mora dialect, to Korloria, "You keep at the work you're doing. The Empress has Dhai in her fist, now. What we can't uncover here, she may be able to uncover there. The boy here will prove useful."
"I can awaken the heart of this hold without the boy," Korloria said. "It's already murmuring. You've heard it."
"I have," Dasai said, "but my mother has murmured nonsense for years about pirate treasures and secret inheritances, and yet here I am, still a magistrate."
"There's no use getting access to the engines in those temples if we don't know how to use them," Korloria said. "The heart of Caisau knows how to use them."
"I agree," Dasai said. Roh noticed for the first time that Dasai carried no cane, and did not wince when he bent his legs. "Let's hope this little menagerie isn't for nothing."
Dasai and the tall woman bent together to talk in yet another language, one Roh didn't follow at all. Dasai nodded, and they walked back out of the library, leaving Roh alone with Korloria.
Roh started to get up.
"Stay seated," Korloria said.
He froze.
Korloria caressed his cheek. "You are a pretty boy, has anyone told you that?"
Roh stared at her midsection, fixated on the eye of the silver belt that held her outer robe closed.
She leaned over him, pressed her cheek to his, and whispered, "It pleases me when you please them."
Korloria stepped away. "Come now, it's time for dinner, scraps. That's a fine name, isn't it? Scraps. What's left of the Dhai. Go on."
Roh didn't have to be asked twice.
After dinner he lay awake with his ear pressed to the warm wall of the hold, listening for the voice. Instead, he heard voices inside the dormitory. Two giggling translators. It was rare enough to hear his companions speak, let alone laugh. He sat up. Slim windows lined the top of the southern face of the room, and nighttime now was just a blush, a dusky haze while the suns rode the edge of the horizon, so he could see two figures tumbling together in the sheets of one of the beds.
Roh lay back, trying to ignore the twinge in his knees, and thought of Korloria's breath in his ear. He had learned something of hierarchy now, and power. There were many kinds of power.
The next day, when Roh gave Korloria his pages, he made sure to brush her fingers with his. When she came to him that morning with more books, she leaned over him, and he pressed his knee against her thigh. She made no mention of it, but she lingered there, far longer than she had in the days before.
Roh felt nothing at all when he was near her – at best, he felt disgust and fear. But when he quailed at what he knew he needed to do, he thought of Dasai's story about the slave who bowed, and pressed his head to the floor and waited for his moment, and gained his freedom.
The sky moved, and the days passed. Korloria held him after the others went, finally, and they did not wait for anyone else to enter. She pulled him into the stacks, and pushed him against the wall, and kissed him, pinning him there. Roh thought of Kadaan, his finger wet with wine, wiping the rouge from his lip, and he let Korloria do whatever she wanted, though his knees ached, and he threw up in the hall afterward.
Press your forehead to the floor.
A few days later, Korloria swept into the dormitory with the three other archive administrators and called up two young men. Roh recognized them as the ones who'd been tangling in the sheets after dark.
She whipped them both, and while the whole dormitory watched, one of the other administrators castrated them with an infused blade that cauterized the wounds. Roh smelled burnt flesh.
"Let this be a lesson," Korloria said, and her gaze swept right over Roh, "there will be no fornication here. None. You are here for one purpose."
One purpose.
Korloria brought Roh up to her rooms the day he heard Caisau call his name.
Roh ran his hands along the hall as he followed her up, stomach knotted with dread. He heard the burbling laughter again, and glanced at Korloria's back to see if she had heard it too, but she didn't react.
"Rohinmey," the voice whispered. "You are running out of time."
Roh offered Korloria aatai from her great liquor cupboard, and she drank until she was pleasantly tipsy, but not drunk. He could not overpower her, not as he was, with two bad knees, badly malnourished. Her behavior around him was so practiced that it gave the impression that she took advantage of the young translators often.
The liquor was enough to make her sleep, and when she was snoring, Roh slipped out of bed and went into the room adjacent. He found her papers at her desk, all written in what he assumed was their Dhai dialect. It was impenetrable.
He rifled through the desk drawers, and finally found one that was locked. He worked at the lock with what he took to be a stylized letter opener on the desk until it opened. There he found what he was looking for – a map of Caisau.
And he didn't need to understand the language to read the map.
Roh tucked the map into his belt. The lock on the drawer was broken. She'd notice it. She'd know it was him. When she woke up, she'd use the ward to murder him, if he was lucky.
Roh took the letter opener from the desk and went back to the bedroom. He stood over Korloria. Raised the weapon.
She opened her eyes. Grabbed his arm.
Roh climbed on top of her, though his knees sent sharp needles of pain up his thighs.
"You think I'm stupid?" she snarled. She pushed him off. He fell hard on the floor.
The collar around his throat burned. A shock of pain lit down his spine. He bent back, screaming. Another jolt, like someone had yanked his spine from his body and now dangled it above him, and set it on fire.
Korloria knelt next to him. She took a fistful of his long hair, twisting his head back. "Don't think–"
He brought up the letter opener in his other hand and stabbed her through the heart.
Korloria let out a huff of breath. She released him. Clutched at her chest, slumped against the bed.
Roh lay on the floor, shaking, while the memory of the pain throbbed through him, wave upon wave. When it subsided, he crawled across the floor to the bed and used it for leverage to pull himself up.
Korloria was slumped to one side. Her eyes were open, one hand still hanging onto the weapon in her chest.
Roh stumbled to her wardrobe and pulled it open. He found one of her robes, a head wrap, a silver belt. He dressed carefully, arranging the yellow wrap on his head the same way the other Tai Mora women in the hold had. If they didn't ask him to speak, he could pass.
She had no proper weapon in her room, so he yanked the letter opener from her chest, cleaned it off, and hid it in his sleeve.
He kept the map close at hand, but knew vaguely where he was going – down.
Roh grabbed his crutch and limped into the hallway, closing Korloria's door firmly behind him. The first two people he passed were servants, and both looked back at him. He had kept his eyes lowered. He had learned deference. But a Tai Mora wouldn't. A Tai Mora would walk through the hall like she owned it.
Roh came to the big main stairwell, the same one he had last come up without assistance before Korloria destroyed his knees. The stairs looked like an incredible obstacle, an impossible cliff face.
He remembered Lilia in Oma's Temple, navigating the scullery stair every day without a complaint, and he firmed his resolve. He grabbed the rail tightly, and started down.
Within the hour, he was lost in some storage room, hungry and increasingly terrified about what would happen when they found Korloria's body and him gone from the dormitory. He pressed his hand to the wall of the hold.
"A little help?" he said.
Nothing.
Maybe he really had imagined the voice. He was mad, then. He'd made it all up. Roh opened door after door, looking for another stairwell. He followed the map to a dead-end – a dark corridor with just one flame fly lantern, and only two of the flies still alive.
Roh wondered what would happen if he just died down here. It was better than whatever was up there.
He twisted back around to go back the way he'd come. But the entrance was gone. A blank wall stared at him. Roh turned around again. Where there had once been a dead end, he now saw a gaping hole in the skin of the hold.
Roh staggered forward. He ran his hand along the wall for balance. A stone ramp spiraled down and down, as far as the flickering light of the flame fly light reached. Roh took the lantern from its holder in the wall and brought it with him.
As he stepped over the threshold, the wall sealed behind him.
He was alone in the darkness, with no way back.
Roh limped down and down, because the only way out was forward.
|
(Worldbreaker Saga 2) The Empire Ascendant
|
Kameron Hurley
|
[
"fantasy",
"LGBT",
"science fiction fantasy"
] |
[] |
Chapter 51
|
The hissing, chittering monstrosities poured into the room like golden insects, grinning and ducking their heads from left to right, as if trying to draw Zezili's fire. Not that Zezili had much of anything to fire. She backed up into the green pool, weapon out. It was going to be like dying at the claws of the cats, only she wasn't getting up this time.
It'd been a good run.
Zezili slashed at the first one who reached her, drawing blood. Another creature came from her left and bit her hard on the shoulder. Bit her! Zezili stabbed it in the face. They swarmed her then, hands and feet and faces pushing her to the ground. One bit her thigh. She kicked. Slashed.
Somewhere at the rear of the mob, one of them screeched. Then she heard curses. Human ones. Had some of her force survived?
The swarm turned away from her and attacked the group behind them. Zezili crawled back around the throne, dragging her leg, and peered out at the melee. She recognized the armor of Saradyn's men. He had come after her, then, and she hadn't even noticed. She had grown too soft out here in the woods, too wrapped up in her own woes. Saradyn's men hacked at the creatures, and she wasn't sure which she wanted to prevail. If she got lucky they might just kill each other and end all of her problems, but that was too easy. Rhea had never once blessed her with providence.
Saradyn himself pushed free of the mob, lunging with sword and shield. He moved fast for a big man. Three of his men fell, and five of the women. One of the creatures scuttled off, injured and keening. Only Saradyn remained, backing up toward Zezili, feinting at the last creature. Blood streamed down his arm. Zezili half thought she might cut the rest of his arm off herself, but what was that going to accomplish, now?
The creature had him pinned. It used one set of legs to grip his sword, and took him by the neck with its hands.
Saradyn gasped.
An arrow zipped into the room, followed by two more. They thunked neatly into the creature's back. It released Saradyn and turned just in time to get an arrow through the eye.
Natanial, the beaked-nosed man, strode into the room, carrying a short bow and two more arrows in his drawing hand. He said something in Tordinian, and gestured at Storm's body in the throne.
"They woke something up," Zezili said, pressing the stump of her arm to her bleeding leg.
Natanial raised the bow, strung an arrow, and peered around Saradyn to get a good look at her.
Saradyn sneered at her, and said something that probably wasn't complimentary.
"They're like the Empress," Zezili said. "But you knew that, I guess, if you fucked her. They'll eat us up, starting with Tordin. I came here to stop it."
"Tordin is mine," Saradyn said.
"So you can speak a civilized language after all," Zezili said.
"They murdered the whole force we brought through the hole," Natanial said. "If our interests are aligned–"
"Go eat your cock," Zezili said.
"Pleasurably," Natanial said. "After I'm out of this festering pit."
"Your sinajistas outside?" Zezili asked.
"Fire witches," Saradyn said.
"Bang stones. Make fire. Yeah, yeah, fucking witches," Zezili said. It was like talking to some superstitious dajian.
Natanial lowered his bow. "How are you still alive?"
"Been asking myself that," Zezili said.
"You're blessed of some god," Natanial said. "Just not mine." Natanial frowned at the two of them, clearly disappointed in his odds. Zezili horked out a laugh that loosened something in her chest. She spat phlegm.
"Fight out," Saradyn said.
Natanial shrugged, said something to him in Tordinian. Saradyn laughed.
"What?" Zezili said.
"He says we cut whatever's keeping your friend here upright and run back across those killing fields," Natanial said. "But that's about as tactical as Saradyn ever gets."
Zezili glanced up at the big silver throne. "You think he powers them, maybe?"
"They need all these bodies for something," Natanial said. "I expect they were hungry after they came out of there."
Zezili crawled to her feet. "Good enough plan as any," she said. She smirked. "Well, Saradyn. You've got the biggest sword."
He frowned, muttering something under his breath as he approached the throne. He barked something at Natanial. Natanial pointed as Zezili, made a retort.
Saradyn held out his sword to Natanial.
Natanial took the blade and got behind the throne. Zezili and Saradyn took a few steps back, inching toward the door. Zezili kept Saradyn in the corner of her eye, concerned he'd pull a knife. He never took his eyes off her.
Natanial brought up the blade.
Zezili cringed.
The blade came down on the tangled root mass behind the throne. It thunked solidly into it, as if the pod were a tree trunk. A wound opened up in it, bleeding sticky green sap.
Natanial cut again.
Storm bolted up in the throne again. He screamed.
Saradyn pulled his dagger out and held it in front of him like a talisman. He kissed his other hand and made some kind of warding gesture.
Storm leaned forward in the throne, both hands gripping the armrests, gibbering green blood. Natanial hacked again.
"She sees you," Storm says. "She sees you. She is here."
Natanial's blade sliced through the final thread of the giant root.
Storm's body went limp again. He tumbled off the throne, landing in a pathetic heap at its base.
Zezili exchanged a look with Saradyn. "Time to run?" she said.
"Run," he said.
The three of them ran hard up through the tunnel. Zezili favored her injured leg. Natanial could have outrun them both, Zezili knew, but he stayed behind her, guarding the rear. As they broke into the clearing, Zezili noticed something in the light had changed. She gazed up into the sky where Para should be, but Para's light wasn't blue. It was violet, and its heavenly body was the wrong shape.
"The fuck–" she muttered, but Natanial came from behind her, urging her forward, and suddenly what had happened in the sky wasn't so interesting anymore.
Saradyn made for the great hole Zezili had come in. Halfway there, Natanial yelled at him, "They've got a swarm there!"
Zezili swung behind a big tree. Saradyn slowed. Sure enough, there was a group of at least forty of the gold-skinned women between them and the hole. They were arranged in a loose circle, clicking in that strange language of theirs.
Saradyn swore. Zezili searched the scattered ground around them, trying to think of some other way out of this fucking kill pit. She saw the great cocoons hanging from the branches, oozing their slimy sap. She followed the pods – low, higher, highest – and found a neat chain of them that ran up the side of the mountainous anomaly that encircled them.
"The pods," Zezili said. "Climb those up and over?"
Natanial stared at her hands – the three fingers and the dagger. "Can you?"
She brandished the daggered stump. "Makes for great climbing, I'm sure."
"Follow me," Natanial said.
Zezili was happy to let him draw the first of them off.
Natanial stayed in cover for half the length of the run across the center of the clearing before he broke into plain sight.
Zezili staggered to keep up with him, but she was flagging. Saradyn slipped ahead of her.
She heard the hiss of the women the moment they saw them, and it spurred her to run faster.
Natanial caught the end of the swinging cocoon and climbed up it like some kind of arboreal creature.
Zezili jabbed her dagger into the cocoon and clawed for purchase with the three fingers of her other hand. Pain jolted up her arm. She almost vomited. But the women were barreling after them now, advancing fast across the clearing, pushing bodies out of their way, and that fate would be worse than the pain.
Saradyn's big ass was just ahead of Zezili. She hooked her fingers into his belt. He kicked at her.
"Stop!" she yelled. "You kick again I shove my dagger up your ass, you hear me?"
Saradyn must have understood, because he didn't kick at her again. With Saradyn climbing and her hooked onto his belt, she could push herself up with her legs while he pulled.
Saradyn got to the top of the first cocoon. She pushed herself up next to him. They stood side by side, watching Natanial clawing for a root on the side of the mountainous barrier. They were just twenty feet from the top.
"Swing the cocoon!" Natanial yelled.
"Want to dance, then?" Zezili said, and cackled. She rocked her body weight forward. Saradyn did the same, swinging the cocoon until Saradyn could grip the other one. Zezili leapt after him. They swung again, to the next, and by then Natanial was scrambling up the side of the mountain.
Zezili went to make the jump after him, and slipped. She yelled. Saradyn swore. She still had hold of his belt. Her legs swung out over the side of the cocoon. The horde of women had arrived below. Four of them tried to leap onto the first cocoon, but they were too heavy. It broke, and they toppled. Zezili swung herself from Saradyn's belt out toward the edge of the mountain, aiming for the root Natanial had used.
She took a breath and released Saradyn's belt, flailing with the daggered stump and her fingers, praying one found purchase.
The dagger thumped into the mountain, scraping down the side of it as she fell. She caught the end of the root with her three fingers. She swung her legs forward, clamping hard onto the rest of the root with her legs. She stopped falling.
Zezili panted and sweated. She yanked her dagger out of the mountain and plunged it up again, relying almost entirely on her legs to push her up the top of the mountain.
Saradyn was yelling at her, but she didn't pay any attention to him. Her legs were shaking. The women milled below her, hungry.
Zezili pushed with her legs, up and up the length of the root until she saw a whole, lean hand thrust in her face. She looked up.
Natanial held out his hand. She shook her head. What was she going to grip it with?
He got down on his knees and took her by the front of her shirt and lifted her the last foot up to the top of the mountain.
Zezili lay there, panting and hugging the loose dirt.
Saradyn climbed up next to her, his face poking up. He spat something at her. She made a face.
"I'm going to prepare the witches," Natanial said, and slid down the other side of the mountain. It was so steep he mostly tumbled down it, reducing the speed of his fall by grabbing onto shrubs and roots on the way down.
Zezili stared Saradyn in the eye as he grabbed at the top of the mountain. She saw him grip a loose clod of dirt. He loosed his other hand, relying on the clod to hold him. It didn't.
Saradyn slipped. He yelled.
Zezili edged up to the side of the mountain and stared down at him. He still had hold of the root with one hand. He dangled out over the horde of women.
"I'd offer a hand," Zezili said. She held up her stump. "But it doesn't look like I've got one to spare."
Saradyn sputtered at her. He kicked at the side of the mountain. She figured he'd get a foothold.
He didn't.
The root tore.
Saradyn's face crumpled into that of a fearful child – horrified, angry to learn that the monsters his parents always told him weren't real were, in fact, waiting for him, and had always waited for him.
Zezili's mouth hung open.
Saradyn lost his grip, and fell into the hungry arms of the women below.
Zezili crawled across the broken ground, listening to Saradyn's cries, until she could get her feet. Then she slid down the other side after Natanial, mind still reeling from Saradyn's demise.
Natanial was standing among a group of six men and four women in purple robes – the sinajistas, Zezili supposed. They argued.
"What's wrong?" Zezili asked. She didn't get too close. Being set on fire sounded like a bad way to go.
"They need line of sight in order to kill the women," Natanial said. He pointed at the glowing violet body in the heavens. "Even with a flash ascendance, they always need line of sight."
She looked up the way she'd come down – it was too steep to climb. The only way back was through the hole. "They afraid of getting dirty?"
Natanial said, "If they go in, they know they aren't coming out." He peered behind her. "Where's Saradyn?"
"Needed to take a piss," Zezili said. "I'll go."
"Where? To piss?"
"No, into the hole. A delayed burst. Not sure what they'd call it." She made a circular motion with her arms, trundling them around each other like she was wrapping yarn. Her body was still shaking, the muscle memory of the climb. "You twist the fire spell around a living thing, then send it into the enemy. It's set with a delay. Gives you time to get inside before it's triggered. Pretty popular tactic of mine." Of Tulana's, really.
"When have you ever done something like that?"
Zezili showed her teeth. "Did it to dajians all the time," she said. She remembered the runner she had sent up to scout the top of that living mound, happily sending him to his death. And more. She'd sent so many more.
"Burned like fucking torches," Zezili said, "but they took out a lot of the enemy, too."
"I'm missing something."
"Not at all," she said. "I'll do it."
"Where is Saradyn?"
"That's what I said. I'll do it."
She was caught, every which way she looked. Standing here with fifty of his men, this predatory assassin, a gaggle of sinajistas, and Saradyn dead, well – there was no way out of it. She had come here to thwart the Empress's plans. She had come here to die.
Natanial's look was piercing. "Saradyn," he said.
"Didn't make it," Zezili said.
"Tell me why I shouldn't kill you here."
"Because you can kill me in there."
Natanial barked orders to the sinajistas. They obeyed. Zezili felt the air around her condense. She took a long breath, like breathing soup. Her skin tingled.
"How long do you need?" Natanial said.
"As long as it takes to get through the hole and into the center of them," Zezili said. "When all that food's gone in there, I figure they're going to start coming out."
Natanial said something to the sinajistas.
Zezili waiting until the sinajistas gave her the nod, then walked back to the hole. They all followed her – Natanial, the sinajistas, the fifty men of Saradyn's still on this side. She felt like some kind of blood sacrifice to a vengeful god, and she supposed she was. She always wondered what it felt like, knowing you were going to die.
She came to the mouth of the hole, and stared down.
"Changed your mind?" Natanial said.
"So you can gut me?" she said. "No."
"They do far worse to king killers."
"That man was no king," Zezili said. "Just one more foolish bag of meat who thought he was fucking special."
"Like you?"
"I don't think it," Zezili said. "I know it."
She started down into the hole. The journey felt shorter this time, maybe because she knew what to expect. She raised her head and peered out over the clearing. The women were on the other side.
Zezili ran toward them, waving her arms. She wasn't quite sure how long the sinajistas had given her before she burst apart. Maybe she wouldn't die at all. Maybe Natanial had just said it so he could watch her get eaten up.
The women heard her. They raised their heads.
Zezili stopped, out of breath.
Finally.
What were people supposed to think about, before they died? She didn't know. She thought about how tired she was, and how much she stank. She missed her fucking hand. Her leg was still bleeding. She leaned over to catch her breath while the swarm of the Empress's people advanced on her position, like something from a Dorinah opera.
She straightened as they came at her.
"Zezili?" Natanial stood in the mouth of the pit. What a fool. He'd burn up if he didn't run.
The first line of creatures hissed at her, so close she felt the heat of them.
Natanial cupped his hands to his mouth. "Anavha's alive," he said, and dropped back into the hole.
Zezili snarled. "Son of a–"
She burst into flame.
|
(Worldbreaker Saga 2) The Empire Ascendant
|
Kameron Hurley
|
[
"fantasy",
"LGBT",
"science fiction fantasy"
] |
[] |
Chapter 52
|
Taigan sailed into Anjoliaa at the stern of a broad Aaldian ship. She held onto the rigging and leaned out over the sea, inhaling the musky reek of the harbor. After the mess in Dhai, Anjoliaa appeared, on first blush, untouched. But as the ship neared the port, Taigan caught her first whiff of fear. The docks were crowded – not just dock workers and fishmongers and slaves, but citizens of every class, in every state of distress. Men with tattered vestments and calloused hands. Women with muddied robes and frayed hair. Ataisa in their long trousers and tunics coming apart at the knees and elbows. Children who should have been veiled, running about with little more than scarves on their heads. All shared the same hungry faces, and wide, panicked eyes. Taigan supposed that was a good sign, that they still had the energy for panic, but as she peered deeper into the crowds she saw the listless ones packing the dark corners, their eyes glazed over and all hope gone.
They sat with hands outstretched, babies in their arms so dehydrated and malnourished they'd ceased to cry. What remained of her people had come to Anjoliaa to die, pressed against the sea by the Tai Mora. She imagined that when the end came, the sea would turn red with their blood.
Taigan watched the faces of the Aaldian crew. Most Aaldians were dark people, gray or green eyed, with hemp-stained hair coiled into elaborate dreadlocks, and broad, flat faces. She knew them to be a fractious but largely peaceful people, yet as the clawing hands of the desperate Saiduan came for the side of the ship, the captain did not hesitate, but leapt across the deck and gave orders for her crew to beat them back with the mallets at their hips.
Taigan slung her pack over her shoulder and hopped from the stern to the pier. She landed hard. The crowd around her scattered. Hungry children covered their eyes. She still looked the part of the sanisi, even after all this time in exile.
One of the men on the pier offered to sell his youngest child to the Aaldians in payment for passage. Taigan glanced back once, just in time to see the look of disgust on the captain's face.
"We're not slavers or cannibals," the Aaldian said. "We deal cleanly or not at all."
Of course, if he'd offered her a corpse or a pint of blood, she would have considered it a fair trade. Morals were funny things. Moving among so many different people, over so many different times, Taigan could take none of them seriously.
She enjoyed a clear walk up the pier for a few paces until the crowd got used to her, then she had to resort to shoving them out of the way. Hunger and desperation always overcame fear, in the end.
Taigan made her way away from the pier, and the crowd thinned out. She suspected many Saiduan had already fled to neighboring islands, or gone east to the far continents, or south to Hrollief. Every people had its breaking point, and she suspected that the flight of the Patron from Harajan to Anjoliaa had been a clear sign that the time for stubborn national pride was over.
She made her way to a tea house. The insistence on paying customers meant it was less packed than the streets, but the atmosphere was no less fearful. Groups of men and ataisa spoke together in low tones. It was not until she was halfway across the room that she noted she had come in the wrong entrance – the women's entrance had been on her right. Of course, she didn't expect any of them to try pulling off her trousers to combat her claim, at this point. She was whatever she said she was. She expected a good number of the men and ataisa were women dressing the part in an effort to avoid too many questions. She tapped at the front counter until the proprietor came up from the back.
"I'm Taigan," she said.
The proprietor was a plump, heavily bearded man. He looked her up and down once, but didn't challenge her. "Of course. This way, please."
He led her up a twisted set of steps, a long hall, and then up another narrow flight. He knocked.
"Taigan, your Eminence," the man said.
The door opened.
Maralah stood in the narrow frame. She was much thinner. Taigan saw it most in her face, as the rest of her was heavily swathed in several layers of dark robes. She wore blue and violet, not sanisi black. Taigan saw the glowing hilt of her violet weapon sticking up from a slit in the back of her clothing, and her boots were the same. Her hair was newly braided, glossy, as if she'd just had it done.
Taigan stepped toward her, thinking to say something witty about how hard it must be to find a good Anjoliaan hairdresser with the city in disarray.
Maralah put a knife through her gut.
Taigan huffed out a breath. The tea shop proprietor squeaked and ran back down the stairs.
Taigan leaned against the wall, clutching her bleeding stomach. "Was that necess–"
Maralah took Taigan by the collar and hauled her into the room. Taigan instinctively called on Oma and pulled a skein of breath beneath her skin. But even as she prepared a defense, the ward on her back burned, and her hold on Oma vanished. She snarled.
Maralah flung her against the wall. Taigan crumpled, curling in on herself. Maralah stabbed her in the face, through her right cheek. Stabbed her chest. Taigan flung out her arms. Maralah cut her open like a stuck pig. Taigan screamed.
Maralah cut open Taigan's stomach and yanked out her intestines. Even as she did, the wound she'd inflicted in Taigan's face began to hiss and bubble and heal. Maralah sweated and seethed. She hacked and pulled. She cut out Taigan's liver and flung it across the room. She drove her knife into the lying, duplicitous woman's heart, yes, woman, she could see the breasts now that the clothes were ripped and torn and bloodied. Taigan the abomination. Taigan the impossible. Taigan who could not die.
Taigan's intestines began to coil back into her body. Maralah pulled her infused weapon from her back. She cut off Taigan's left leg, then the right. Cut off both arms. Sliced her head in two. She called on Sina and burned the mangled, shredded body to a charred ruin.
She dropped her weapon, then, and sagged to the floor, breathing heavily. She leaned against the large trunk at the end of the bed and watched the seething, blackened ruin pull its fleshy pieces back together. Hunks of charred meat drew together to form the torso. The liver remained on the other side of the room, but the rest of the pieces fused back together and began to reknit themselves, like something from a nightmare. She watched the husk become a human-shaped glob again. The whole meaty mess trembled, then spasmed. Gasped. The spine arched back. Screaming. Screaming. Screaming. Unending.
The char flaked away from the skin, revealing a fresh new layer of a deep russet brown. The body regenerated in a matter of minutes, and came back smooth and hairless as a newborn babe.
The screaming stopped. Taigan stared at the ceiling, huffing deep breaths, and flexing her hands.
Maralah tugged at the ward she'd imbedded in Taigan so long ago, and felt it respond. The ward was intact, then, bound to the flesh firmly. How lucky for them both. Her body felt heavy. She held her weapon loosely, legs splayed, just staring at Taigan, wondering at all the choices that had brought her here.
"Rajavaa is dead," Maralah said.
He had been dead for two days, but this was the first time she had said it aloud. He sat in the bathroom at the end of the hall, the body preserved in salt. She'd thought to preserve him for Taigan, thought if she could resurrect him twice a day she could save the higher functions of his brain. But by the twentieth time she resurrected Rajavaa on this long trip to Anjoliaa, she had brought back only a gibbering shell, a non-person, a sack of meat. Even if Taigan had come a week sooner, she'd only have preserved the body – a breathing vegetable.
"Everyone dies," Taigan said, and laughed. She laughed and laughed until it came out a hacking cough. She turned onto her side and hacked up gobs of blood onto the floor.
"You failed me," Maralah said.
Taigan spit bloody bile. "I've failed a lot of people."
"You were not allowed to fail me."
"Allowed?" Taigan said. "What a vain, power mad woman you are, to believe your desires shape the world."
"Desire is the only thing that shapes the world."
"The gods shape the world. Not you. Not me. Only the gods." Taigan pointed to the sky. "Only the heavens."
"We are the instruments of the gods."
"You believe that?"
"Yes."
"More fool you."
She lifted her weapon. "I will cut you up again."
"You were not the first," Taigan said. She sat up and winced, as if her new skin were still tender. She rested against the wall, breathing heavily. "I expect you won't be the last."
"How old are you, Taigan? How many Patrons have you watched die and ascend? How many empires?"
"What is age, really? Time." Taigan's gaze rolled up to the ceiling. "In my village, when I was very young, we still knew of Oma. Oma was not a myth. Oma was the dark god. The vengeful god. Oma was the god who cursed me."
"How long, Taigan?"
"Hundreds of years, likely," she said. "Give or take."
Maralah stared at her, this hairless freak, this monstrous omajista who had shown up at the Patron's court twenty years before with stories of Oma's rising. Alaar's predecessor had thought her mad. Alaar had not.
"Why did you betray Alaar?"
"Alaar, huh," Taigan snorted. "A weak Patron for a time that needed a strong one. He was not right for what was coming. You know that now, but you didn't then. I did."
"You would have killed him."
"Of course. Just as you did."
"I didn't."
"You allowed him to die. It's the same thing."
They sat for several breaths in silence. Taigan said, "What next?"
Maralah had spent the last month asking herself that very question. She had gone over possibilities again and again, coming up with terrible answers, each more empty than the last.
"There is no hope in Saiduan," she said. "What remained of the army, and the last of the sanisi, were killed in Harajan."
"You took no force with you?"
"I was betrayed."
"Ah."
She grimaced at the way Taigan said it, like it was an inevitability. "Some say what remains of the more powerful families are making bids for Patron. But most are simply fleeing now, like gnats."
"I expected you to fight in Anjoliaa."
She laughed bitterly. "With what? These filthy refugees, throwing roof tiles? There is no army. What little order they have here is orchestrated by the city guard, and they're beyond corrupt. More and more flee each day. Soon the city will run itself, right into the sea."
"If you have no use for me," Taigan said, "release me."
"After all this? No."
"There is hope, still."
"Not here."
"In Dhai."
"With the maggots? I thought you hated them. And where is your little worldbreaker, eh? All the omajistas you promised me."
Taigan shrugged. "You summoned me before I was done."
"You left them in Dhai."
"The Tai Mora offered them a peaceful resolution, before they burned the harbor. How many peaceful offers did they make us?"
"Do they feel that bad about killing themselves?"
"I think they wanted Dhai untouched, in a way they did not with Saiduan. They came here to destroy, but they are going to Dhai to occupy it. The final battle will not be fought in Saiduan. It will be fought in Dhai."
"You want me to release you so you can go back to Dhai? You'll run off to some fishing village, like a coward." Like her. Staying in Anjoliaa meant death, being run through against the sea. She knew it. Taigan knew it. But calling Taigan a coward was easier than calling herself one.
Taigan shrugged. "Do what you will. When you are dead, the ward is released. If you want to die here, that suits me very well, too. I have a lot of patience."
"Why did you fail me?"
"The task you gave me was to find a worldbreaker so we could close the way between the worlds. But we had yet to understand how to do that. I think the Dhai know. We need both to succeed."
"Give up everything and throw our lot in with the Dhai? Is that what you're saying?"
"You do what you like. I ask only that you release me."
"No."
"Very well."
They sat in silence for some time more. Maralah was aware of the murmuring noise from the street, and the steady drip, drip of a leaky pipe somewhere in the guts of the building below her.
She got to her feet. Sheathed her blade. "Get yourself a room." She tossed Taigan a couple of coins. "And new clothes."
Taigan stood, naked, and went to the door. "For the love of the empire, Taigan, put on something." She grabbed one of Rajavaa's robes and threw it to her.
Taigan dutifully pulled it on, staring at Maralah the whole time. She opened the door. Left her in silence.
Maralah wasn't sure how she'd expected to feel, on seeing Taigan, on punishing her for her transgressions. She had won something, surely, by getting her unkillable healer back, but she had no worldbreakers, no Patron, and no army. Just she and Taigan, and Kovaas downstairs, drinking his sorrow from a deep cup. They had all looked to her, and she had failed them again and again. The Tai Mora no doubt knew what she was only now beginning to realize: the Tai Mora had won. Saiduan was dust, like the Dhai before them, and the Talamynni before them, and on and on, back and back for how long, how many cycles?
All she had to choose now was how she wanted to end it.
A knock at the door. The blackest part of the night, when Maralah slept the least. She reached for the long dagger at her bedside.
"Announce yourself."
"Kovaas."
She had no light, but he had brought a lantern with him. She held tightly to her dagger, because the light was blinding, and she thought perhaps he'd come to end it. She saw he had a steaming bowl of something in one hand.
"You'll sleep better if you eat," he said.
"Are you a nursemaid now?"
"It would make for a pleasing change of profession. What are you?"
"Not a War Minister, that's certain." She took the bowl. It was warm, which was nice, because the chill she had seeped into her bones. It was curried rice and fish heads. It smelled divine. "Where did you get this?"
"I have my ways."
"You cooked it yourself?"
"Killing is not all I'm good at."
She broke apart the flatbread tucked into the edge of the bowl and ate with her hands. Her stomach murmured.
"Rumor says the Tai Mora are four, five days out," he said.
"The city's been quieter."
"A few have joined with the local guard, put up defenses. But I suspect those won't last. There's a very vocal group that wants to surrender."
"They've seen what the Tai Mora do to towns that surrender." Well, perhaps they hadn't. But she had. It was no different than what they did to cities that fought. Perhaps the fighters died more quickly.
"And what will you do?" he asked.
"Don't know," she said. "You?"
"You should lead them," he said. "It would be a fine change of profession."
She wiped the bowl clean and stood. She poured water from a pitcher into the basin on her night stand and washed her fingers, considering. "They won't follow a woman."
"You're not a woman. You're the Minister of War."
"I've been around and around this dozens of times."
"Sometimes our stories erase women who lead," he said. "It doesn't mean it never happened, only that we refuse to remember. There are folk stories of–"
"There are folk stories about men who turn into bees," she said. "There are stories of time-traveling dogs and shepherds with wings. They won't follow a woman." She sat back down next to him.
"I did," he said. In the dim light, broad shadows played across his heavily bearded face. The beard made his expression hard to read. Big, bright eyes, broad, generous face. A face she had brought back from death – for loyalty, if nothing else.
"You followed Rajavaa," she said. "Not me."
"I followed you. Not Alaar, not Rajavaa, not Morsaar. You, Maralah."
She pressed her hand to his cheek. He leaned into her touch. "I'm tired of fighting," she said.
"Then let's not fight," he said.
She pressed her lips to his, and he responded in kind. Not urgent or demanding, but gentle. The kindness of the kiss was so unexpected that it lit her up like a torch. When was the last time she had been touched with kindness? They made love in the cool evening like much younger people. She had been past the age at which she concerned herself with pregnancy for some time, but had not been able to take advantage of it. The freedom it gave her was nothing short of miraculous. Kovaas drank her like a thirsty man, as if she was the last woman in the world, and perhaps, tonight, that was what they were – the last two sanisi in Anjoliaa, drunk on the inevitability of death. But not yet, not yet…
After, he lay sprawled beside her, breathing low and soft, and she traced the broad scars on his back and wished they had met under some better circumstance. But Maralah the Minister of War would not have taken another sanisi to bed. The politics of that were too great. She would have relied on celibacy or hungry young men from the villages. Never equals. Never potential rivals. She had not lived this long by acting like a foolish girl. Yet here she was.
She thought of Rajavaa's body in the tub. And Taigan in the room below. She wondered if Taigan had heard them. Taigan, more broken than any of them.
Kovaas rolled over. Caught her hand in his, drew it to his breast. "Will we part tomorrow, then?"
"Or tonight, under cover of dark?"
"They will follow you, Maralah."
"And you?"
"You know my answer."
"Even if I am a woman without title who leads no army and holds no power? You find that interesting?"
"You will always have power. Over an empire, a village, an army, or perhaps just over a man."
"Sentimental," she said, but she wrapped him in her arms, and rested her face on this broad chest, and, for the first time in weeks, considered a future that did not end in death.
|
(Worldbreaker Saga 2) The Empire Ascendant
|
Kameron Hurley
|
[
"fantasy",
"LGBT",
"science fiction fantasy"
] |
[] |
Chapter 53
|
Ahkio was on the wall, cursing what felt like a terrible hangover, when Sina entered the sky. The double satellites hung there for one blazing, fearful moment, then Para winked out. The parajistas on the wall wailed. It was like a knife cut cleanly through the line of them. Tulana was screaming at one of her Seekers, a sinajista. The smoky walls that barred the view of their retreat dissipated, revealing the empty field below where the refugees had been.
"Oma's breath," Ahkio said, and ran down the line to see how far Yisaoh and their retreating forces had gotten. He could not see them from here, but their tracks would be easy to follow.
He had not called any sinajistas from the temple. They were completely defenseless.
Ahkio yelled at the parajistas. "Off the wall! Retreat!"
Tulana barreled toward him. "We hold this wall!"
"With what? We have one sinajista and three hundred militia. That's the last of us."
"Then we die here," Tulana said.
"I said–"
She grabbed him by the collar, shook him. "I don't answer to you. I answer to that little cripple, and I tell you now, I would rather be dead than a slave." She released him, and yelled at her people.
"Voralyn! Fire wall!"
Ahkio bolted down into the hold, and found the leader of the militia, Farosi, coming up the steps. "Is it true?" Farosi said.
"Para's down. We need to retreat."
But Farosi climbed up past him. Ahkio went after him. They stood on the wall together, staring out over the low fire wall that now ringed Kuallina, held there by Tulana's single sinajista.
Farosi placed his hands on the wall, and nodded grimly. "All right," he said.
"We need to retreat," Ahkio said. "They'll bust through that ring in–"
"We'll stay here," Farosi said. "We need to cover you. Get to the Line room, quickly."
"Farosi, you'll die here–"
"Of course," Farosi said. "That was the plan all along, was it not, Kai? We distract so the others may flee. It just so happens we distract a few moments less than we hoped. Come along."
"I can't–"
Farosi called two parajistas over. They were trembling badly, already exhausted and now shaken. "Take the Kai back to Oma's Temple," he said. "There's room in the Line for three."
They did not have to be asked twice.
"Can I take your hand?" Ahkio asked.
Farosi nodded. They clasped wrists.
"I need you to burn it behind you," Ahkio said. "Send a small force south to follow. Burn everything. Every village. Every field. Every orchard."
"I have fifty on the ground. I'll move them as soon as you're out."
Ahkio nodded. The parajistas came behind Ahkio and hurried him over to the Lift room. "Caisa!" Ahkio said. "I can't leave without Caisa!"
But everything was happening very quickly. The tirajista in the Lift room poured the chrysalis components into the divot in the floor, and it bubbled up around them, and off they went, Ahkio and two powerless parajistas, swinging back over the trees, speeding away from Kuallina. "Get Caisa out!" he yelled, but the others were already turning back into the hold to fight.
Ahkio pressed his face to the northward side of the chrysalis, watching as the army came alive outside Kuallina. A wave of fire burst up from the foreign army, a plume twice the height of the wall. It engulfed the fortress. As the wave passed, the Tai Mora army swarmed, like a thousand insects devouring some corpse. For a moment he wondered if Lilia and Mohrai had survived it. He knew Yisaoh would, fool woman. Yisaoh would survive anything.
The Lift passed above the trees, higher and higher, giving him a clear view of the army's assault on the gates of Kuallina while Sina's baleful purple glow illuminated the field. It was the same journey he had taken the year before, tucked inside the Lift with Nasaka, after she had told him his sister lay dying. Now it was not his sister who lay dying. The whole country was burning as he watched on.
"Maybe… the temples…" one of the parajistas said. She met Ahkio's look and stopped speaking. She was young, not much older than him. "Perhaps we can… the temple of Sina, at least…"
"We're retreating," Ahkio said. "Dhai is lost."
She began to cry.
Ahkio could not bring himself to comfort her. He saw Sina's light reflected in her eyes, and he gazed toward Oma's Temple with a heavy sense of dread.
Sina had risen.
Nasaka was a sinajista. One of the most powerful. She would not be happy, and she would have burned her way out of those cells the moment her star entered the sky.
Whatever waited for him at Oma's temple would not be much better than Kuallina.
Four hours later, Ahkio and the parajistas arrived in the Lift room at the Temple of Oma. Ahkio saw no flames above the temple, no burning plateau, nothing to give him any idea of what was happening inside.
There was no one to meet them, so they had to wait for the chrysalis to dissolve on its own, which was maddening. The three of them shouted for another hour before the chrysalis began to lose its integrity. They peeled it away with their fingers, and Ahkio bolted out the door.
"Come with me," he told the younger parajista, Mihina. And to the elder, Sulana, he said, "Round up the sinajistas. They need to know we're retreating and burning the temple behind us."
"The temple?" Sulana said. "Kai–"
"You want to leave it to the Tai Mora?" he said.
She shook her head.
"Then go," he said.
He and Mihina went down the scullery stair. He burst onto the sixth floor where the novices should have been training, but the rooms were oddly empty. Ahkio kept descending, checking halls as he went. His sense of unease intensified.
Ahkio plunged down the steps, finally coming out in the foyer. It was packed, clogged with novices and Oras. Some were crying.
He called at the first he saw, a boy with a pocked complexion. "Where's Meyna?" he asked. "Meyna and the Li Kai?"
The boy burst into tears. "Kai! Kai!" he cried, and the cry went up, and the room seethed like a living thing.
"Where are they?" he yelled.
"She's in the Sanctuary!" someone said, and Ahkio pushed his way through them, jostling the crowd rudely. The doors to the Sanctuary were open. He barreled inside.
There was Nasaka at the center of the room, holding a bowl full of blood.
"Nasaka!" he said.
She looked up. So did the woman who knelt in front of her. Ahkio came up short.
He knew the woman at Nasaka's feet, though he had not seen her since he was a child.
"Etena?" he said.
His aunt rose, a narrow slip of a woman with his mother's broad forehead and pert nose, pulling at the cloak around her shoulders. "Ahkio?" She glanced at Nasaka. "You said he was dead."
"Where is Meyna?" Ahkio said.
Nasaka dumped the blood over Etena's head. Etena gaped, sputtering.
Ahkio ran to the platform, wondering whose blood that was. His child's? Meyna's? "It won't work!" he said. "You think you'll just make a new Kai, you think–"
A blast of heat took Ahkio off his feet. He slammed against the far wall. The crowd screamed around him, and parted like a sea for Nasaka. Ahkio was suddenly sick, and vomited all over the floor. Fire. Why was it always fire?
Nasaka strode past the crowd, pulling her willowthorn sword from the sheath at her side.
"Stop! Nasaka!" Etena came down the steps, one hand held high. How had Nasaka found her after all this time? Even with Meyna's direction, it should have been impossible. Etena had stayed hidden because she didn't want the seat any more than he had.
Ahkio coughed. His eyebrows were singed. He scrambled to his feet and tried to keep his head about him. The memories were pouring back – his mother, the fire, Kirana's arms pulling him to safety in the Dorinah camp…Nasaka's expression now was fearful, not angry. But fear was worse.
Etena caught up to Nasaka and grabbed at her tunic.
Nasaka turned stiffly and ran her through, then set her on fire.
Etena burst into flame, like some horrible specter come to life.
Ahkio screamed, screamed like he had the day in the camps, and for the first time he questioned who had really started the fire that killed his mother. Was it really the Dorinah legionnaires? Or someone with a far more intimate knowledge of what fire could do? Oma's breath, he thought, she made me a puppet from the day I was born.
He ran into the foyer. People screamed and scattered. He slid around the banister and went up the scullery stair, taking the steps two at a time. He had no idea where to go – just away, away, as far and as fast as he could.
He smelled smoke. He was sick again on the stairs.
Ahkio pushed into a door on the fourth floor, hoping he shut it fast enough that Nasaka didn't know what floor he came out on. He looked for a place to hide, and then wondered at the absurdity of that. Hide from her until when? Until some other sinajista dared to face her? Until the Tai Mora came?
He ran down the hall. These were the rooms for the novices and they stretched out across this whole floor of the temple. In a fit of inspiration, Ahkio ducked through the door to the latrine and pressed himself against the wall just inside. There was a bank of four stone seats under which flowed a steady stream of water.
Ahkio ran to the latrine and looked down. He could probably fit. He'd lost weight like everyone else, but even so navigating those dark, filthy tunnels all the way down to the sewer dregs would be dangerous. He turned around and yanked the door open to run again– just as Nasaka strode down the hall. He slammed the door.
Too late. Too late by far.
Ahkio backed up against the wall. He was out of ideas.
He heard Nasaka's footsteps outside.
She opened the door, and came in sword first.
"Why not wait for the Tai Mora to kill me for you?" he asked.
She pointed her sword at him. Her expression – he thought she would look mad, but no, it was the same expression she always wore – grim certainty. Absolute faith.
"Etena," he said. "Why call Etena from the woodlands?"
Nasaka shook her head. "You aren't real," she said.
"What?"
Nasaka swung at him.
Ahkio ducked. He tried to get around her, but she was well-trained, and he was unarmed. The sword caught him in the side, and ripped open a great gash.
He stumbled and grabbed at his side.
She raised her weapon.
Ahkio punched his head into her stomach, ramming her against the wall. She swung again. Caught his arm.
Ahkio hit the floor. Blood gushed from his right arm. Soaked his sleeve.
"Nasaka, please, this is… a mistake…"
"They killed you," she said. "My real son. You're some imposter. Liaro said you were different after you came back from the basements. I can see that now."
"I'm not, Nasaka. I never was. Please." He grabbed her wrist with his left hand, trying to take some control over her weapon. His wounds burned, but fear and adrenaline burned brighter.
She kicked him in the gut and swung.
He rolled away, but not fast enough. The weapon bit into his leg and cut deep. She swung again. He screamed and yanked himself forward. She took off his left leg at the thigh.
Ahkio shrieked. Blood gushed, so much blood he swooned and crumpled on the floor. His vision swam, and ran to black at the edges.
Nasaka appeared above him, holding his leg. She threw it down the latrine.
"Nasaka..." he said. "Mother, please–"
The last thing he saw was the blazing purple light of her weapon swinging for his head.
|
(Worldbreaker Saga 2) The Empire Ascendant
|
Kameron Hurley
|
[
"fantasy",
"LGBT",
"science fiction fantasy"
] |
[] |
Chapter 54
|
Taigan sat on the roof of the boarding house, staring out at the spinning spire of Sina in the dawn sky. The sky turned a blushing lavender as the double suns broke across the horizon. Unlike Para, Sina rose before the suns, and set just after them. It amused her to read the tomes of astronomers desperate to understand why the divine satellites did not adhere to a strict, regular path the way the heavenly bodies did. They were not fixed things, the astronomers said, but visitors from someplace else, the divine realm, thrust through the seams between things at uneven intervals. The powers they brought with them were equally unpredictable.
She smoked a Tordinian cigarette, a rare luxury now, and wondered how the battle went in Dhai, or if she had already missed it. It had been weeks since she was pulled back here to Anjoliaa, weeks waiting for the Tai Mora army. She thought she could see the first sign of them now, in the very far distance. The smoke of cooking fires. Far more interesting, however, were the tears in the sky. Along the western horizon she saw broad ripples. As she watched, one tore open to reveal a bloody amber sky on the other side. She called Oma, and the breath that flowed beneath her skin came more easily and with more intensity than it ever had. Stargazers could predict little. She tracked Oma's rise by how easy it came to her. Not long, now.
The window behind her opened. Maralah said, "We're leaving."
Taigan crawled back into the window, and dropped to the floor. Maralah and Kovaas were there, both looking very clean and overdressed.
"Twenty minutes," Kovaas said, and gave Maralah a little bow. He picked up a pack and left them.
Taigan put out the cigarette on the window frame and preserved the butt of it in her coat pocket. The weather had warmed considerably, but even this far south, there was still a chill in the air at sunrise and sunset.
"What is my task?" Taigan asked.
"You're to stay in this room until tomorrow morning."
Taigan raised her brows. They'd begun to grow back, darker and thicker this time. They nearly met over her eyes now. "And then?"
"And then you'll know what to do."
"You could have told me that before I put out my cigarette." More long distance messages, then, playing runner to whatever strange scheme she was up to now. Did she plan a final stand? Taigan hoped so. She had listened to her and Kovaas fucking the last few weeks, and knew something about her had changed. She no longer looked like a walking corpse, a dead person with no family, no hope. Taigan wondered what it felt like.
"Those are vile things," Maralah said.
"It's not as if it will kill me."
"No," Maralah said. She turned on her heel. "Until tomorrow morning."
"Are you leaving me money to eat, at least?"
"The proprietor has been paid in advance for your meals and your room. But only until morning." She hesitated at the door. Glanced back at her, mouth partly open, as if she wanted to give one last order, one final piercing comment. But she did not. She stepped through the door and left Taigan alone.
Taigan went back onto the roof. She spent her day watching the sky, and the approach of the Tai Mora army. They were another day, perhaps two, out, but the city was broiling. Some were shoring up their houses, but many more had left. Only the very stupid or the very desperate stayed – the elderly, the infirm, the stubborn. Watching a city preparing for an army was like watching them prepare for a natural disaster, an imminent storm far too big for them to understand.
She spent the evening in the main tea house playing a game of screes with a very old man whose beard was stark white. She had played screes with Lilia a few times, but it was the first she had seen it in Saiduan. She supposed Anjoliaa, being a port city, was most likely to have picked up the game. The pieces were arranged on a square, checkered board. Twelve white pieces in the middle, twenty four black pieces arranged around the edges. It was easy to see the lesson in it – the white pieces had to win by outmaneuvering a much larger force that surrounded them on all sides, as if in an ambush. Taigan had had enough of being ambushed, so she played the black pieces, and the old man played the white. She admitted to herself early on that she was not good at the game as the white pieces began to trump hers, one after another. The game was not one of attrition, which she thought was interesting. Instead, the goal for white was to move the tall white Leader piece to one of the corner squares on the board without being overtaken by a black piece. Taigan's goal was simply to eliminate the Leader piece by boxing it in on all sides with her superior number of black pieces.
Taigan lost the first game, and the second. As dusk fell and the proprietor came around with some watery soup and weak tea, they began a third game. They were the last two people in the tea house. The old man was another boarder.
As Taigan sipped her tea and surveyed the board she understood why this was Lilia's favorite game. It was not about superior numbers, but isolating one piece. If you isolated just one piece, even if it meant sacrificing all of your own pieces, you would win the game. It was all about the Leader piece.
Taigan nearly dropped her cup. The game. Lilia's game.
The realization came over her so suddenly that it made her a little giddy. Without her power, Lilia was just a strategist. A smart strategist would play the game that would best topple the board. She could play white – outnumbered, but sacrificing all to save the Leader piece. That was a good strategy for the Saiduan, it was the game Maralah had tried to play, but it wasn't very Dhai. If Lilia was playing to win, she would play to put herself next to Kirana. She would box her in. She would play to capture the Leader piece, and watch the rest fall.
That was the moment Taigan felt the ward that had bound her for over a decade break.
She let out a huff of air. Spilled her tea. The old man started. The wound on her back went ice cold, then – nothing. She felt no pull, no push, no heavy gauze around her thinking or her gift and the use of it. It was as if she were lighter. Freer.
Taigan set down her tea. Placed both hands on the table.
"You will lose the third," the old man said. His Leader piece was just two places from the corner square.
Either Maralah was dead, or she had released Taigan voluntarily. Taigan bet on dead, knowing what waited for them outside the gates. But she was not going to waste her newfound freedom finding out.
She stood. "I concede," she said.
The old man grunted. "Poor loser."
"I don't believe in losing," Taigan said, and went upstairs to find her weapon.
Maralah gazed out over Anjoliaa from the height of the eastern foothills. Dusk cloaked the valley. Sina was still ascendant, bathing the world in a purple glow as the moons began to rise and dominate the sky. The great satellite was larger than the largest moon, but only just, and it glowed with its own intensity, not the reflection of some other star. She held its power easily beneath her skin, with hardly a thought; the concentration required now that her star was ascendant, with her at the full capacity of her power, was negligible. From this distance she could also see the Tai Mora army on the other side of the city.
She meant to hold Taigan until morning, giving her a good head start in avoiding her, should she be eager for revenge. In her position, Maralah would have sought vengeance immediately. But as she gazed at the Tai Mora army, her resolve, for the first time in her life, faltered. It was the army they both fought. The army that had come to destroy them.
Maralah had fought it with everything she had, sacrificing everyone she cared for, even Rajavaa, to its bloody extinction. Now she stood on a hilltop with just thirty families, Kovaas beside her, leading them to some rotten, remote fishing village where she thought they could weather out the rest of the war. She wondered if the Tai Mora would hunt them down and kill them, the way her people had with the Dhai, or forget about them. Once the Tai Mora crossed over, what use was there in murdering her people? None. None at all. But she had some experience with armies used to killing. When the killing ended, one needed to have plenty of other work to keep them occupied, or they'd turn on the civilians. She had seen it a hundred times. She knew what she would do.
Maralah glanced back at the families on the ridge. They sat in the broad clearing, resting for a few minutes before the next push. They were quiet as ghosts. She and Kovaas had spent the last week putting together this sorry little band of refugees and encouraging them to flee the city. She and Kovaas had found other sanisi in the city, and given them the location of their final destination – a remote fishing village far to the northeast, one of the early settlements routed by the Tai Mora. Why would the Tai Mora return to a place they had already burned out?
It was a place Maralah knew well, the city her daughter was born in, so many years ago, when she still thought about the future, perhaps too much. She could have ended the pregnancy, but Alaar was… himself on learning of it, and simply assigned her to a remote part of the Empire for a year, at her request. Some days she wondered why she bothered.
Maralah had not raised her, just left her with some fisher family. She had become a skull dancer in a local city temple to Oma, and died soon after it was overrun by Tai Mora. Maralah had not seen her since she was six months old. She did not miss her, not in the visceral way women often said they missed their children, but some days she missed the idea of her.
She wondered if that's all regret was, missing the idea of a thing.
"Maralah?" Kovaas took her hand.
She did not pull away.
|
(Worldbreaker Saga 2) The Empire Ascendant
|
Kameron Hurley
|
[
"fantasy",
"LGBT",
"science fiction fantasy"
] |
[] |
Chapter 55
|
Anjoliaa burned black as pitch, as if the Lord of Unmaking had rained fire from the sky.
Luna smelled it long before she saw it, but the revelation was still shocking. When she crested the northern hills, following the broad muddy track of the road past a massive, clawed tree, the smoke seemed to rise up forever.
Shoratau to Anjoliaa had taken her five weeks. If high summer had come later, she would have frozen out there. Shoratau to Harajan nearly ended her. At one point she hadn't eaten for nine days. But the Tai Mora had cut a broad swath of destruction from Harajan to Anjoliaa, and she was able to pick through what they left behind. Though the armies were hungry, Luna had the advantage of knowing where many people hid their foodstuffs. Homes burned, but the simple root cellars surrounding the remains generally stayed hidden under melting snow and mud. Her feet were bruised, and she knew she'd lost at least a couple of toes. She hoped it wasn't more.
From this distance Luna saw the tangled ruin of the city stretching on and on, all the way to the harbor. Two tall ships lay smoking there, and she could see three more sturdy ships in the distance, whether Tai Mora ships or foreign ones assessing the damage, she was uncertain. Anjoliaa was supposed to be the last intact harbor in the south, Luna's only way off the continent for hundreds of miles. Back in Harajan she thought she'd beat the army there by at least a week. But hunger and illness had gotten the best of her, and that left her standing here in the muddy tracks of an army that had burned the city below and was now nowhere in sight. She saw no camp outside the city, and no movement inside it.
Luna stopped at the edge of the road. She carried a stout walking stick to help steady her. The frostbitten foot no longer hurt, but made it difficult to walk. The road she had followed since passing by Kuonrada – also burned out and empty now – went another forty paces ahead, then met a massive sea of muddy tracks at least half a mile wide. The muddy churn flowed from the top of the rise all the way into the city, as if some massive beast or force had plummeted from the sky and onto the hill, then run screaming into the city.
A warm wind buffeted her, pushing up from the sea. She picked her way forward. She had come too far to stop.
As she descended toward the city, she saw a party of three figures coming from a copse of trees about three quarters of a mile distant. She paused to assess them. They looked tall and tattered from here. They didn't have mounts. Refugees. She shifted her route so she angled further away from them, heading toward another part of the city. When they shifted their course, too, she walked a little faster.
They began to run.
Fear knotted her belly. She had no cover out here, and only the stick to ward them off. Luna glanced behind her at the broad, scaly tree she had passed.
Luna scrabbled across the muddy ground, making for the tree. Her pursuers gained. She hurried faster.
They neared. Luna heart the slap of mud. Her breath sounded loud, so loud. She could not feel her feet. They felt like two wooden blocks at the ends of her legs, propelling her forward. If Luna fell she would break.
She slipped once and found her balance. Fingers tangled into her coat. She slid out of it. The cool air struck her. She stumbled. Clawed for the tree.
There were no branches within her reach. So she launched herself at the trunk of the tree and jumped, stretching her arms and fingers like a bird about to take flight.
Her hands found the branch. She crawled up. Her first pursuer grabbed Luna's shoe. She kicked out of it and climbed higher. Luna was smaller, lighter. She climbed. Higher and higher, until the slippery yellow branches bent dangerously under her weight.
Below her, her pursuer had slowed. The two men on the ground yelled encouragement.
The branch beneath the man bent. He reached for Luna's bare foot. "Maggot!" the man said.
Luna kicked the hand away. Crushed his fingers.
The man lost his balance.
The branch snapped. He pinwheeled his arms and fell.
He fell with a bloody thump to the ground below. His companions went to him, calling, "Rasaa, Rasaa!"
His leg was bent unnaturally beneath him. Luna saw the broken white bone poking up through his knee.
The two men gazed up at Luna. One yelled, "We're coming back and burning you out, maggot!"
One of the men went off, back toward the burning city. That worried Luna more than anything, because it meant there were more than three men. They most likely meant to sell her, after they did whatever it was with her that amused them. Now that one of them was injured, they would be angrier, and Luna knew all about what angry people did to those they had power over.
Luna listened to the man wailing below. He wailed for a long time. The sun moved across the sky, low. The days lasted much longer now; if she was further north, it wouldn't truly get dark, just fade to dusk for a few hours each day. Winter in Saiduan. She wondered if she would ever see one again.
Her thoughts drifted. Roh yelling, face perfect and beautiful, even pinched in hunger, hair greasy after weeks without washing. Brave, confident, yes, but confidence that made him so very stupid. He had never been owned. He didn't know what he was giving up. Pressing the book into Luna's hands. Wide eyes, and fear, yes, but the confidence was still there, the belief that death was for other people, not for him.
Luna's heart hurt.
The tree shook.
Luna jerked her head up, realizing with a surge of icy fear that she had started to nod off. Her arms and shoulders hurt; her legs ached. The two men were still there. The uninjured one had settled against the trunk. He no longer looked up at Luna, but out toward the city where his friend had gone.
Luna huffed out a little breath. She gazed down the length of the trunk, and found a clear path through the bare branches to the man's head, thirty feet below. Luna took one stiff arm away from the tree trunk and grabbed the utility knife at her belt. Hesitated. If she waited until dark, the man might bed down under the tree, giving her a greater chance of stabbing him somewhere vital instead of just angering him. But his friend might return by then.
She pulled the knife. Got a line of sight on the man's head. She began to uncurl from the tree, shifting as quietly as she could.
Falling was going to hurt.
Luna dropped the knife.
In the next breath, she released herself from the tree trunk and fell after it.
She banged into branch after branch, slipped and slid, hanging just long enough at each level to break her fall. The man below shouted.
Luna landed on him. Luna grabbed the man around the neck with both arms and squeezed. She put his legs around the man's torso. Hung tight.
The man roared. Blood gushed from a wound on his head. The knife had grazed his skull. Luna saw the knife in the grass and squeezed harder. The man was bigger, stronger, but like Luna, he was hungrier and leaner than he should be, tired, and Luna had the advantage of surprise.
She held on. Whenever the man breathed out, Luna gripped tighter. The man clawed at Luna's arms. Smacked her into the tree. Luna leaned forward, over the man's shoulder, so he couldn't hit Luna's head against the tree.
The man stumbled. Fell to his knees.
Squeeze. Hold on.
Do you want to be someone's flesh again, bound to another?
Squeeze.
The man's fingers found the knife.
Luna felt hot, sharp pain in her left shoulder. She turned his face away, to the right.
Squeeze.
Luna saw a vein on his shorn head throbbing, throbbing. Heard the wheezing. Pulled tighter.
The man collapsed.
Still, Luna hung on.
She held the man tight while he twitched, held him close until the fight left his body, the muscles relaxed, until the man became meat.
Luna released him. Her arms were stiff. She rolled off the body. Grabbed and sheathed the knife. She crawled a good distance from the body and caught her breath. The injured man lay another few paces away. He had shouted himself hoarse, and now lay silent. If he dared move, the ruined leg beneath him would shift.
Leave him or kill him?
Luna pulled the coat from the body and replaced her own with it, though it was much too big. She used the man's belt to knot it securely around her. Took the man's pack. Found some food, fire making tools, more than she had owned in weeks.
As she threw the pack over her shoulder, she heard a muffled thumping behind her, and turned just in time to see the dark form of a bear rider cresting up over the rise.
Luna ran the other direction, away from Anjoliaa and up the coast. She might lose him in the trees there, she might—
Luna tripped. Fell headfirst on the muddy ground. Mud filled her nose and mouth.
The rider caught her by the collar of the massive coat and pulled her up.
Luna yanked out the knife, and waved it at him.
"Luna?"
The rider was tall and lean, hair butchered to shoulder length, knotted against his scalp in braids. He wore a long black tunic and leather trousers under a dog hair coat. Luna hardly recognized him, even swinging from his grip.
"…Kadaan?" Luna whispered.
"Where is Roh?"
Kadaan lowered Luna to the ground. Luna panicked. Would he leave Luna here, if Roh wasn't with him?
"The Tai Mora have him," Luna said. "He told me to bring the book to Dhai."
"The book? You lost Roh, but not the book?"
Luna started to pull off the too-big coat.
"Don't," Kadaan said. He glanced back at the dead and injured men near the tree. "Their friend is just behind me, with three more. Pushed into a tavern saying he had a Dhai up a tree, maybe a Tai Mora. They will eat you if you stay."
"How did–"
"Come with me."
Luna bent at the knee, and made an awkward attempt at the two-fingered salute of subservience.
Kadaan caught her up again, and pulled her up on the bear behind him. "No time for that," he said.
Kadaan circled the bear around the other side of the tree and took off toward the coast. They rode all the way to the beach, where the sea had carved out great caves. Luna saw people down on the beach. When the walkers caught sight of them, they scurried back into the caves.
"Who are they?" Luna asked.
"Refugees from the city. A few were able to flee ahead of the army."
"Were you here?"
"No, I was staying in the city. What is left of it."
"How did you know–"
"I put out word I was looking for two Dhai traveling from the north. One of my runners said a man burst into a tavern saying he had a Tai Mora up a tree. I believed that highly unlikely."
"Are there no Tai Mora in the city? Where did they go?"
"They used gates," Kadaan said.
"This far south?"
"Oma is rising. I suspect they can do what they want, now. Who knows where the army is, now?"
"Why did you wait, Kadaan?"
He did not answer.
"There's no use going into the city," Kadaan said. "I heard Aaldian and Tordin ships have come by this beach the last two nights."
"Payment?"
"Expensive, but not set. They'll take whatever we have of value."
"We don't have anything of value."
"I'll speak to them."
Luna slept and ate, curled in a tiny uninhabited cave, more like a divot in the stone, one of the few that offered buffer from the wind that wasn't occupied. Kadaan woke her at midnight, which rolled in with the tide.
He led Luna down to the waiting rowboat. Luna trembled, listening to the men haggle with the shivering families on the beach. Jewelry and coins traded hands, and when there were not jewelry or coins, Luna saw parents sobbing over their young children, then turning around, shaking their heads. No, they would rather stay here than give over their children as slaves. Luna's heart raced.
The big man beckoned Kadaan over. Luna hung back, watching the Aaldian man speaking. He gestured at Kadaan, then back at Luna. Luna stared at Kadaan and wondered what terrible bargain Kadaan would make, now, to ensure the book went to Dhai. When Kadaan glanced back at Luna, Luna lost her nerve, and turned away, she ran across the rocky beach.
"Luna!"
The rowboat, the mix of Saiduan accents, the sound of Aaldian, the smell of the sea.
Kadaan caught her. Grabbed her around the waist. "Luna! Where–"
"I won't go! You won't sell me!"
"Luna, stop. No one's selling anything. You want to get to Dhai? Luna!"
"You're a liar!"
Kadaan pinned her against the ground. The stone bit into Luna's shoulders. Her heart pounded. Her whole body shook. The smell of the sea, the sound of Saiduan…
"Enough." Kadaan held her arms. "They'll take my weapon, Luna. My infused weapon, in exchange for your passage. Do you understand? You are free. Free to go to Dhai. Deliver the stupid book. Understand?"
Luna stopped struggling. "I'm not a fool. Just tell me."
"I've told you. You want freedom? This is freedom. You'll be alone, you understand? You get on that boat, and you're alone. The blade is only good for one passage, though it's worth an estate. They have us at their mercy."
Kadaan's grip eased. Luna sat up.
"You hear me, Luna?"
"Yes."
"The harbor in Dhai is closed. The Tai Mora have invaded. But this ship is going to Dorinah. From there you'll need to get to Dhai."
"I can't go to Dorinah. The Dhai are slaves there, too."
"The only other option is Aaldia, then. They're traveling from Dorinah to Aaldia."
"Then I go there. I can find a way to Dhai from there."
"You won't know the language. You'll have no money–"
"I'll find a way."
"You'll be alone, Luna."
Luna met his look. "I have always been alone, Kadaan. Don't you know that?"
Kadaan stood. Held out his hand. "Let me put a ward on you, at least."
"What kind? I can't be bound–"
"Not that kind. A ward of protection. It will help protect you against the gifted arts. All right?"
"For Roh?"
Kadaan waved a hand at her. "Does it matter?"
"That's why you're not going, isn't it? You waited here for Roh."
"If I find Roh and I tell him I abandoned you here, what would he think of me?"
"Set the ward," Luna said. Her heart clenched. Luna could not imagine anyone ever loving her so much as to travel over a thousand miles to find her.
A few words, a wave of Kadaan's hands, and the ward was set. Luna's skin prickled. Then Kadaan led her back to the Aaldian rowboat.
Luna watched Kadaan unsheathe his glowing blue weapon and hand it over to the second man in the boat, this one stouter than the first. The man murmured something over it, and nodded. The other beckoned to Luna.
Luna climbed into the rowboat with four other refugees, the only ones able to pay the price.
Kadaan stood on a rocky spur a few paces away and watched as they pushed off. The moons were out. The night was bright. So Luna knew Kadaan watched all the way across the water, until the rowboat met the side of the great Aaldian ship. Luna climbed up after the others. When she got to the top of the deck and gazed back, Kadaan was gone.
|
(Worldbreaker Saga 2) The Empire Ascendant
|
Kameron Hurley
|
[
"fantasy",
"LGBT",
"science fiction fantasy"
] |
[] |
Chapter 56
|
Anavha recovered from his injury in Coryana's house outside Galina. He bled badly, but she said there was very little true damage. Her worst fear was infection. She packed his wound with honey and lemon juice and some other terrible things just to be certain.
Natanial had picked him up after punching Zezili senseless, and said he was taking Anavha to the infirmary, but he didn't. He rolled Anavha into the back of a bear-pulled cart and paid a boy to take him to Coryana's.
"Be quiet and wait for me." The last thing Natanial said to him.
Days dragged into weeks, and summer brought with it heat and muggy days. News came from the north that Saradyn's army had suffered a terrible loss. The rumors caused unrest in the town, and Coryana made it clear through her gestures and the limited number of words they both knew in one another's languages that she didn't want him to go far. He worked with her in the garden, and practiced his concentration exercises in the afternoon. In the evening, he wrote poetry, and though Coryana understood none of it, she nodded as he spoke, and smiled like one of Zezili's sisters humoring him.
The day Tanays, Saradyn's second in command, declared himself king of the region, Anavha sat out on the stoop with Coryana drinking sugar water and watching red birds flit through the forest canopy. He could stay here and wait for Natanial forever, or for Zezili, or for Tanays to find him, or Saradyn – if he still lived. His whole life had been here, sitting on this porch, waiting for someone to tell him what to do.
That night, he said goodbye to Coryana and thanked her for her kindness, and she nodded and smiled like she knew what he was saying and tucked him into bed like a child.
Anavha waited until she had put out the lights and the moons had risen. Then he rose from his bed, packed the few clothes and books and papers he had traded for, and walked into the middle of the garden, barefoot. He carried his shoes in one hand. He wanted to feel the dirt under his toes one last time.
Then he opened a door.
Tordinian poetry, not beautiful, but what it unlocked in his mind was lovely – a path to another place, another life. He peered at the sky on the other side, fearing he may have wound the snarls of Oma's light into the wrong configuration. But no, that was his sky. His moons.
And there was a little rocky path leading down to a tiled city lit with a thousand lights, all twinkling like the stars come to the ground.
He stepped through the door. The air warmed. It was hot, almost sticky out here. The drone of the insects was loud. He glanced once behind him, at Coryana's house, and saw someone on the porch.
It was Natanial.
Natanial did not move from the porch, though. Just watched him.
Anavha raised his hand. Greeting or goodbye? Both. All of it.
Natanial raised his in turn.
Anavha remembered their last day together, before Natanial went after Saradyn and the army.
"What am I supposed to be out here?" Anavha had asked. "What am I without her?"
"Power is a funny thing," Natanial said. "You get to decide what to do with it."
"The way Zezili did?"
"She made her choice. Now you get to make yours."
"I'm not… I don't… that's not who I am."
"Then don't make Zezili's choices."
Anavha released his hold on Oma, and the door between Tordin and Aaldia closed, and his past with it.
|
(Worldbreaker Saga 2) The Empire Ascendant
|
Kameron Hurley
|
[
"fantasy",
"LGBT",
"science fiction fantasy"
] |
[] |
Chapter 57
|
The sea of women descended on Saradyn like a snarling plague of field rats. He fell hard onto their bodies, buoyed by their strong arms, which reached out to rip him limb from limb – or so he believed – until he found himself carried aloft while they hissed and clicked around him. When he struggled, one of them bit his arm. Another twisted his leg. He felt the bone snap. Saradyn screamed, overcome with visions of being roasted and eaten alive by these creatures from some other world.
They carried him across the corpse-ridden field, then down and down, through the long, twisting corridors of the ziggurat.
When he saw them rip the gibbering body of the Dorinah legionnaire from the floor, Saradyn started screaming again, because he knew what they meant to do with him.
The great twisted root that connected the throne to the wall had repaired itself. It pulsed now with an eerie green light that glimmered from the pool at his feet as well as the walls. The light shimmered across the throne, and made the women's snarling faces all the more horrifying.
The women heaved him onto the great throne. It exerted a powerful force, pulling him into its grasp as they pushed him into it. His fingers gripped the arms of the throne of their own volition. He sat straight and tall, still screaming. A jolt of pain ran through him, and then there was darkness. Silence.
And from the dark and the silence, a pinprick of light. A voice.
"Saradyn, it has been too long."
He knew the voice. Knew it as he knew his own. If he still had a body he could feel, he would tremble and curse and beg her to let him be. But he was nothing, now, just a wisp of consciousness propelled by some dark force.
Saradyn gazed upon the Empress of Dorinah, her face peering into his awareness as if she peered into a mirror. Behind her was a stone wall capped by a shimmering red carpet of something organic, some living thing that was creeping toward her, slowly but relentlessly.
"I knew you could not resist my legionnaires," she said. "I knew you could not resist following. You were always so curious. I'd hoped Storm and Zezili would lead my people, but Storm was not strong enough to reign here alone. You, though? Yes, you will do."
He tried to speak, but he had no body. Yet he screamed at her, still, screamed as he had the day she cast him out of her bed and he went home to conquer his nation and prove his worth. I WON'T.
She smiled. "Oh, you will."
Saradyn surfaced from his fugue among the crowd of women. Were they women, even, or did he call them that only because they horrified him? He heard a great roaring above them, and high-pitched screaming from outside.
"They are burning them," the Empress said, "all they can find. But you are safe here, with those who remain. The temple protects you. Have no fear. There are more of my people here, still slumbering. We will wake them together."
Saradyn tried to claw his way off the throne. In control of his voice again, he said, "I serve no one!"
A prickling pain rode along his spine. Words bloomed in his mind, "YOU SERVE ME."
"No!"
He found his fist in his mouth, but had no memory of putting it there. He began to gnaw at his knuckles. He tasted his own blood. The Empress's voice crowded out his thoughts.
"Did you think you were hunting me? No, Saradyn. You are the only one who can put the people of Tordin to work for my women. You are the only one who can unite them to my purpose. And you will serve me."
Saradyn toppled off the throne. He let out a tangled sob, but it was still muffled by his fist in his mouth. He lay on his side in the center of the green pool as the women stood around him in a silent circle. Saradyn wept as the Empress of Dorinah compelled him to gnaw off his own arm.
|
(Worldbreaker Saga 2) The Empire Ascendant
|
Kameron Hurley
|
[
"fantasy",
"LGBT",
"science fiction fantasy"
] |
[] |
Chapter 58
|
The Aaldian ship was a living thing, like a Saiduan fortress. Luna had thought that was impossible. No Saiduan or Dhai knew how to ensoul a hold anymore, but when she tried to ask the crew about it, they turned up their hands at her and smiled bright white smiles. Only the man on the beach spoke Saiduan. Luna pressed her ear to the hull at night, shoved into the packed hold of the ship with the other refugees, and listened to it breathing. The surface of the ship was spongy and slightly sticky, like undercooked bread.
Aaldians were strange people. Luna knew little about them. They left their country only to trade. They sent no travelers but those in the ships, and none of them ever stayed behind when they docked. Where they had come from, no one seemed to know. Perhaps they had always been in Aaldia, hiding from the Dhai and Dorinah and Saiduan.
They were lean, dark people with twisted hair the color of burnt wheat that they wore in tight locks, intricately woven into knotted crowns. Their sex, let alone their gender, was often difficult to tell, and Luna gave up on it. With no common language, Luna had no way to ask them what was polite or proper. Those on the ship seemed very young, for sailors. She did not see a single person older than thirty.
The storm came upon them suddenly, driving great curtains of rain from the northwest. Luna stood on deck when it came, heaving the contents of her breakfast as she had done for the last six days. The wind knocked her back from the rail, and nearly took her from her feet. One of the Aaldian crew called out from the main top, and the rest of the crew took to the rigging to bring down the sails.
Luna slid below deck just as the deluge opened from the heavens. She clattered down the steps with a wave of water, instantly soaked. She ran to the long storage hold she shared with the other refugees and pulled on her coat. She huddled next to a barrel of salted fish, pressed hard against the spongy hull. She was still nauseous, and the rolling of the boat didn't help. Another of the refugees, a little girl called Sola, vomited her meager breakfast. Luna gagged at the smell.
Luna heard a great cracking overhead. A thump. The whole ship shuddered.
Water poured into the hold.
Luna made for the stairs. She got to the top just ahead of those behind her, just as a great wave smashed into the side of the ship, sweeping her overboard, heaving the ship over with her.
Water embraced her.
Come all this way, this far…
Luna gasped for air. Swallowed water. Gagged. Darkness.
Clawed for the surface.
Her hands broke into the air.
Luna's head came up. She gasped. Got a mouth full of water. The waves pummeled her. She splashed in the roaring sea, adrift. Saw wreckage. Paddled for a bobbing bucket. Grabbed it. The wind roared. Rain fell, nearly horizontal, like a shroud.
She needed a miracle, Luna knew. But Luna only had herself.
Luna heard someone calling. Looked for the voice, nothing, but there… she saw a shoreline. A coast. That's what it was, wasn't it? That long black bar gave the suggestion of land, a black sand beach. She held onto the bucket and kicked – it was futile, though. Luna was carried by the waves, buffeted, a buoy on the open water.
The book was a heavy burden. She shrugged out of her coat. She could lose the coat, not the book. Not after all this. Not when she was so close.
The sea fought her.
She fought back.
Hours passed, though it felt like days. It had to be hours because she saw the gray light of dawn, the burning brand of Sina piercing through the heavy cloud cover. Fog had descended sometime during the night. Luna couldn't see much past her outstretched arm. Just her and the bucket, floating in a borderless sea.
She was a ghost, unbound, and Sina would not take him.
Five years old, six years old, when the Saiduan took her, but she remembered so little of it, and so little before that. Her first memory, this flat sea, blazing hot, the water so blue, and the horizon stretching out so far it looked like a painting. One mother dead, the other gasping like a fish, so thirsty, squeezing the last bit of dewy moisture she had wiped from the inside of the boat into Luna's thirsty mouth.
Luna was too young to ask why she bothered, why she persisted, in the face of certain death for all of them. Hope. Her mother had hope. Hope drove the world, and despair destroyed it.
Luna jerked awake, splashing.
She had nodded off, slipped from the bucket. She kicked and pawed after it in the heavy surf.
Her legs hit something soft. Found purchase.
Luna stood on the sandy bottom. She clawed forward. The fog thinned, and she saw the black sand beach of northern Grania stretching before her. She slogged up onto the beach, pummeled by the surf. Luna collapsed a little ways up the beach, and crawled a few more feet forward, just out of the reach of the encroaching tide. If the tide was coming in, it meant she would have to move at least a mile and a half more to escape the rising water, but her exhaustion was so deep she could not move.
Luna put her face into the crook of her arm and made a terrible sobbing sound. She shed no tears, just made the noise, shuddering there in the sand until the feeling passed and she could begin moving up the beach.
She crawled and crawled as the fog cleared and the high tide line drew nearer. When she finally collapsed, Luna had forgotten that there was anything in the world but this: struggling across the black sand to the tideline, hands scratched by black sand.
When she woke, massive black gulls circled the sky, screaming.
"What's this?" Voices, speaking Dhai.
"Another body from a wreck. Storm must have taken several ships."
"Dhai ships? There are no Dhai in the water now. Ours?"
Luna felt someone kick her. She rolled over. Two Dhai faces peered down at her. One short and fat; the other smaller, leaner, with a meaner face.
"Ours?" the smaller one said.
The fat one crinkled up her face. "Those are Saiduan clothes." She switched languages, something that sounded very like Dhai, but wasn't. Then waited expectantly.
"Is this Dhai?" Luna said, in Dhai.
The fat one sighed. "Dhai." She pulled at a weapon on her hip.
"Wait, wait!" Luna said. She pushed herself up.
"You have news for me, Dhai?" the fat one said.
"Saiduan. I have news of Saiduan."
The leaner woman laughed. "You hear that, Gaiso, she has news of Saiduan."
"I have all the news I need," the fat one, Gaiso, said. "I organized the final purge of Anjoliaa myself."
"Where am I?" Luna asked.
"Where do you think you are?" Gaiso said. "You've got yourself washed up on Dorinah, the first commonwealth of Tai Mora reborn."
Above them, something red and malevolent seethed in the sky.
|
(Worldbreaker Saga 2) The Empire Ascendant
|
Kameron Hurley
|
[
"fantasy",
"LGBT",
"science fiction fantasy"
] |
[] |
Chapter 59
|
Nasaka did not believe in losing. She never had. It was why, when Kai Javia's second child died just days after birth, Nasaka made the decision to give up her own child to Javia and her Catori – Nasaka's brother Rishin. Javia's elder daughter Kirana, a favorite for the seat, was in poor health. Kirana had been sickly from the moment she was born, and they needed another child to ensure the line of the Kai remained unbroken, at least in the eyes of the people. Tir and his family in Garika were already making noise about Javia being unfit to rule. But Javia was, Nasaka thought, more malleable than Etena. Etena knew too much about the coming invasion. So even if it caused some strife, Nasaka convinced Javia to have Etena exiled.
So many people. So many pieces. And for what? To preserve the peace of Dhai. To ensure the existence of a country built on principles the rest of the world thought were unreasonable. But if you were committed to an ideal, you gave everything for it, and Nasaka had, time and again. She preserved Dhai at all costs, even when it meant turning her back on the very ideals she supported. Someone needed to make the hard choices. Someone needed to do the killing, the manipulating, the threatening, to save the others from those things. She was obligated to wear that mantle, and she wore it proudly, if heavily, every day of her life.
She wore it now, as she looked across the advancing Tai Mora armies stretching across the plateau. She had manufactured this. She was part of this. But it was because of her that any would survive. If Ahkio had gotten his way… Ahkio…
She pressed her fists to her eyes. Etena dead, Ahkio cut to pieces and dumped down the latrine, Mohrai overwhelmed in Kuallina; that left just one final player for the seat of the Kai that she had to eliminate before the new Kirana called her debt repaid, and allowed Nasaka and the few she had chosen to live in the new Dhai she had planned.
Nasaka cleared her eyes and took a long breath. She already had several people out looking for Meyna. How had she escaped the temple when Nasaka burned her way up from the basements, Nasaka was uncertain, but she would be dealt with.
A creaking sound came from behind her. Odd, as Pasinu would have announced herself. She turned—
And a knife plunged into her left breast.
Nasaka gasped, so shocked at the surge of pain she reeled backwards.
"My daughter," Meyna said.
Nasaka's lips moved in a litany. Meyna stabbed her again.
Nasaka fell hard. She saw her own blood flowing across the floor, fast as that from a gutted pig. She had seen one once, in the woodland, when they fed the blood of a boar to the thorn fence. The blood was thick and black.
"You nearly killed me, my daughter, you horror!"
Blood flecked Nasaka's lips. She gurgled and grinned, and her chest heaved. Trying to call Sina, but the pain came again and again, breaking her concentration, the knife stabbing and stabbing, throwing bloody flecks across Meyna's face.
Meyna had not run. She had hidden here, in Nasaka's study, for just this moment. Nasaka admired it. It was something she would have done.
"Formidable woman," Nasaka said. "Should have been Kai."
Meyna's hand came down fiercely, thwack, thwack, thwack.
Nasaka tasted copper. Meyna was sobbing and yelling. Nasaka could not make sense of the words she spoke; gibberish, rants, anger… The world began to bleed to black.
Nasaka lay on her side as Meyna withdrew. She heard noise in the hall. Shouting as the army arrived, and Nasaka's supporters uncovered and eradicated the small groups of resistors. Meyna breathed heavily. Tears and sweat soaked her face and her tunic. She wiped her bloody, drool-smeared chin with her trembling hand.
Meyna hissed at her. Hers was the last face Nasaka saw, and the last words she ever heard.
"Curse you," Meyna said, "and everything you built."
|
(Worldbreaker Saga 2) The Empire Ascendant
|
Kameron Hurley
|
[
"fantasy",
"LGBT",
"science fiction fantasy"
] |
[] |
Chapter 60
|
Rohinmey.
He had not heard his full name aloud in a very long time. Since arriving in Caisau not one person had used any version of his name. They called him boy, or scraps, or nothing at all.
Roh descended into inky blackness until he lost all sense of time. His knees ached. He paused to rest often. Finally, he came to the end of the long descent, and paused before a great door inscribed with a symbol – six circles traversed by a triangle. He raised his lantern, and saw writing in living green text circling the doorway. It glowed eerily.
He looked for a knob or a latch, but saw nothing. Roh came up to the door and pressed his hand to it. It opened easily, as if made of nothing but air. The great portal yawned open. He smelled honeysuckle and lavender. A brilliant blue light suffused the room. He shielded his eyes.
"Welcome, Patron."
Roh walked into the room, trying to make out shapes in the blue light, but saw nothing.
"I'm not the Patron," Roh said. "I'm Rohinmey Tadisa Garika." It felt good to say it aloud. He had a name. A purpose. "You're the creature of Caisau," he said.
"I've been called many things." Tinkling laughter. He kept trying to see something in the blue light, but it was like looking into a star.
"If I am a creature, you are a Patron," the voice said.
Roh remembered the slaughter in the tower room in Kuonrada. He remembered picking up the blazing weapon from the floor, hurling it at the Patron, and pinning him to the wall. "By law, you're Patron," Kadaan had said. And no one was to know. But Caisau knew.
"Who says I am?" Roh asked.
"I am the keeper of Caisau," it said.
"The creature."
"That sounds so dangerous," it said. "You must give me a name."
"You don't have one? Then you're a creature."
"Is that how it works? Those without names are creatures? Well, I cannot argue. It's how you have traversed through me, all this time, a nameless piece of meat. What do I know of your culture? Perhaps this is all normal. All things pass on, in time."
"You've been talking to me," Roh said.
"You've been talking to me," it said. "They have poked and prodded, but there are rules, are there not? I have been bound by many rules. I was bound to the Kai before the Saiduan, but when the Saiduan came they bound me to the Patron, but soon they, too, forgot about me. What am I? No one cares to know until the end of all things."
"The Kai spoke to you when this was still Roasandara," Roh said. "Why couldn't she turn things back? Why couldn't she stop it? I read her journals."
"The world broke before she could get to the transference engines."
"What are those? Is that how we keep people from other worlds from coming here? Can we stop it? The Tai Mora think you can stop it."
"Not from here."
"From where, then?"
"At the center of the world there are five temples…" A blazing map appeared in the air above Roh. He hopped back, banging his knee. Pain shot up his leg.
The map painted itself in the air in green and gray, like a parajista-trained illusion. Roh had been learning to build those, before he left the temple. He saw a strange continent. The top half looked like Saiduan, but the bottom was something else. It wasn't until the map unfurled, pressed itself into his vision, that he recognized Mount Ahya, the spur of the plateau where Oma's Temple rested, and the mountain borders of Dhai. But in this map, Dhai was not part of the island called Grania at the tip of the Saiduan continent. It was part of the continent.
"There are four temples in Dhai," Roh said. "Not five."
"That is unfortunate," the creature said. The map winked out.
Roh started. "What, is that all? That's all you have to say? It's unfortunate?"
"The world broke," it said. "I cannot see all futures."
"How do we work the transference engines?"
"You will need a guide," the creature said, and its voice sounded close now, right in his ear. He flinched.
A warm breath of air moved over him, sending a shiver through his body. "You are that guide now, Patron."
"I don't understand."
"The creature on the plateau will know you," it said. "Step into her circle, and the map will unfold. You carry the map now. You are the guide."
"I can't get back to Dhai," Roh said.
"That is unfortunate."
The blue glow around him stuttered, like a disturbed lantern of flame flies.
"Please," Roh said, "say something I can understand."
"Five parajistas, five omajistas, five tirajistas, five sinajistas – one of each to power the great hearts of the creatures there at the center of the world. Then you need a guide, a key, and a worldbreaker."
"And I'm the guide? Who are the others?"
"That is for the other creatures to decide," it said. "I have done my part."
The light went out.
Roh stood in the darkness, cold and alone. He raised the lantern and saw that inside, the room was just cold stone, unadorned.
"Wait!" Roh said. "How do I get to Dhai?"
The voice, tickling his ear, thrumming through the walls. "Most people walk."
Then silence.
Roh yelled, "All this way I've come, for riddles! All this way, and we're going to die, and you don't care. You didn't care when we died the first time. So what use are you! What use are any of you?"
He hit the skin of the hold with his crutch. The crutch sunk through it, like butter.
Roh gasped, yanked it back.
He pressed his hand to the wall. The skin of it became pliable in his hands.
"Where in my hold do you wish to go, Patron?" the creature whispered. Tickling breath.
"The dormitory," he said.
"Then step through."
Roh had taken many things on faith. This was one more.
He stepped through the skin of the hold – and into the far end of his dormitory, coming through the wall as if the spaces between things were nothing. Roh hurried to the privy and took off his stolen clothes. It was nearly daylight already and someone might have seen him. He pulled off all the Tai Mora clothes and stuffed them down the latrines. Washed his face.
He limped back to his bed, knowing there were eyes on him, so many eyes. Roh slipped into bed, pulled the sheet over his head, and lay very, very still.
The creature's laughter still moved through the walls.
"Can you take me to Dhai?" Roh whispered.
"Only through the seams between things here," it said, "and any other living engine you may encounter. Alas, the rest is up to you."
He lay awake still when the morning gong sounded. He raised himself from bed, dressed and smoothed his bed flat and washed his face again. He went through it all like some kind of dream.
They came for him three hours later, when he sat at his desk working on another series of translations. He had barely gotten through a page.
"Come with us." It was one of the other translation administrators.
Roh rose slowly. "I need to see Dasai," he said.
"I'll decide who you need to see."
"It's very important."
"I'm sure."
As they led him out, every pair of eyes in the room looked up at his passing. Roh wanted to raise his voice and tell them to fight, wanted to tell them the Tai Mora were finished, that their time was running out, that if they all fought together, they could overwhelm them. But that would ruin everything he planned, and cause a disturbance that would ruin him as surely as it would ruin them.
"Tell Dasai I remember the story about the dancing," Roh said. "You tell him that."
A fake. A shot in the dark. That's all he had now, though – darkness.
They put him in a holding room.
He knew the punishment for fornication.
He had yet to see the punishment for murder.
The administrator came back some time later. Roh raised his head, hopeful. The man punched Roh in the face.
Roh fell over. He hit the floor hard. The man kicked him four more times, and put a heavy foot into Roh's face. Roh's teeth loosened. He spit blood.
The administrator leered over him. "That was for Korloria," He said. "The rest can wait."
Two guards hauled him out of the cell. He was too weak to walk. They dragged him down a series of steps. He spit again. Two of his teeth rattled onto the steps. He probed the gap left behind – the canine and incisor on his left side.
Pretty, they all said. He looked forward to the day he was no longer pretty.
He tried not to think what they would do with him. He stared at the walls of the hold as he passed, and he thought he heard twinkling laughter. But all the creature had given him was the ability to move through the hold. He could not walk to Dhai. He could barely get up and down stairs.
A hot, muggy blast of air hit his face. He gazed into the great atrium, bathed in yellow light. He saw the winking face of Sina there on the eastern horizon, and pulled his gaze away, already dazzled. Summer had peaked some time before; he had hardly noted its passing inside the walls, but with the nearing of autumn he could see now that the way the sun moved in the sky was changing. The days were already growing shorter again.
Dasai lay at the end of a meandering path of red stones, lounging on a hammock. He raised his head as Roh approached, and folded his book onto his chest. The woman with the lopsided face sat on a living bench opposite him, legs crossed, tracing something on a printed paper.
The guards dropped Roh in front of Dasai. Roh stumbled, trying to keep his feet as needles of pain shot through his legs.
"Dancing?" Dasai said.
"Your story," Roh said.
"Do tell me."
Roh shook his head. "I needed to see you."
"The man you knew is not me," Dasai said.
"I know," Roh said.
Dasai sat up. "It's true I knew a boy like you," Dasai said. "He is dead, alas, or I'd have killed you when I first set eyes on you, because he was a far fiercer boy. He would not have ended his days here."
"I really am related to the Kai," Roh lied. "You were right. I know how to work the transference engines, but you have to take me to Dhai."
Dasai sighed. "And why would I do that?"
Roh got down to his knees, painfully. He pressed his head to the floor. The pain was so bad he thought he might pass out. He hissed out the words: "Because the creature of Caisau wills it. You read the journals. You know it was once tropical here. The land stretched from here to Hrollief without a sea between it. Grania was not an island, it was the heart of the continent. What did that? Oma. The rise of Oma. The breaking of the world. It's coming for us too. You want to stop it. So do I."
Roh raised his head.
But Dasai was not looking at him. He was looking up at the great height of the atrium, mouth agape. The woman beside him turned her head away, and suddenly the room was bathed in a bloody red light.
Roh raised his head and stared up at the heavens. A baleful red eye stared down at him, like the eye of a god, a great gory world breaking god.
Roh heard the creature laugh.
|
(Worldbreaker Saga 2) The Empire Ascendant
|
Kameron Hurley
|
[
"fantasy",
"LGBT",
"science fiction fantasy"
] |
[] |
Chapter 61
|
Lilia left Gian's side and ran from the rush of the army after Sina's rise. She fell into a massive tent. It collapsed on her. She wrapped herself in it, willing herself still and silent so she could prepare for what she had to do next.
Heat scorched the air outside. Sweat slathered her body. But she waited. Quiet.
Boots. Blasts of hot air. Yelling armies. She waited for silence outside, counting the beats of her heart. When the waiting got to be too much, she palmed a piece of mahuan root and let her mind wander.
Finally, the din wore down.
She crawled from the stifling tent and peeked out. The plain was churned with mud. A small child watched her from a tent opposite – too big eyes in a starved face. Lilia pressed her finger to her lips.
When she staggered up and took in the measure of the camp, it was mostly empty. The big banquet table was a mess, scorched in places. Gian's body still lay there, smoldering. Her hair, her beautiful hair, had been burned away, the scalp charred. Lilia felt nothing at all, as if her heart had been burned away with Gian's hair.
Lilia walked across the devastated camp. It still smoked in places. Her people had gotten off a few good gouts of flame before being overrun. She glanced back at Kuallina only once. She did not linger to watch it burn. The massive Tai Mora army had already exploded through the gates, and now they were merely cleaning up. Smoke rose from the keep.
She felt a hot, needling pain in her side, and scratched at it. It took her a moment to realize what it was. She tugged at the wards she had on the Seekers and found – nothing. The Seekers had already perished. She was alone.
Lilia stumbled across the camp and made for the trees. There was more burning to come, and she was its catalyst.
On the other side of the camp, Tasia waited for her in the creek bed, still and silent as a cat. There was a dirty, snuffling figure beside her. Lilia recoiled.
"Where did you find that?" Lilia asked.
It was the feral girl who had followed Ghrasia around Liona, now curled up in a ball next to Tasia.
"She saved me," Tasia said. "I got lost trying to find you like you asked me to, but she led me here. She found the bear. I couldn't hold it myself. I was afraid."
Lilia frowned. The feral girl raised her head, cocked it in Lilia's direction. "You're a filthy thing," Lilia said.
The feral girl muttered something, though not in any language Lilia recognized. How had this girl escaped Liona?
"Did you tell anyone when you left?" Lilia asked.
Tasia shook her head. "Good girl," Lilia said, and she took her hand and together they mounted the bear and rode west through the trees, to the woodland, to catch the last of the Dhai before Kirana's great army turned south for the Temple of Oma. Lilia thought they could outrun the feral girl, but she took to her feet and ran after them, faster than any blind creature should have been able to.
Lilia looked back at her once, and resigned herself to the girl's company.
It took two days for Lilia to catch up to the fleeing refugees, in part because she had to stop often to hide from Tai Mora scouts. A cry went up when the refugees saw her, as if she were a hero coming home. She rode to the head of the column, expecting to find Mohrai there, but when she asked, everyone directed her to Yisaoh.
Confused in the rush of bodies, she waited until the group camped before going off to find her. Tasia ran to keep up with her, the feral girl trailing behind. Lilia had been trying to figure out a name for the feral girl, but came up with nothing.
She found Yisaoh standing over a map drawn in the dirt. Mohrai's cousin, Alhina, and the parajista from the wall of the harbor, Hasina, stood with her.
"I thought you were dead," Hasina said.
"Exaggerations," Lilia said. "Where is Mohrai?"
"Bad pregnancy," Yisaoh said. "Barely made it back to the hold after that fiasco." She took a long drag on her cigarette. "So you lived after all."
"Will Mohrai be all right?"
Yisaoh shrugged. "Most likely. She needed some time to sit. Got some blood. Hopefully nothing."
"That doesn't sound like nothing."
"Are you a doctor?"
"I am, actually."
Yisaoh narrowed her eyes. "You're a lot of things."
"Where is the Kai, then?"
Yisaoh shook her head. "We have reports that there are groups ahead of us, fleeing the clans and temples, doing the same as we are. I put out runners so we can meet up with them. He may be with them."
"We shouldn't meet."
"Shouldn't we?"
"As one force, we're easy to kill," Lilia said. "If we stay split up, it makes us difficult to track down."
"Fair," Yisaoh said, and then Lilia liked her, because she knew she was not a fool. Lilia had suspected there was some sense to Yisaoh, when she drugged the Kai and sent Lilia down to the table.
"The map?" Lilia said.
"Options," Yisaoh said.
Lilia looked at the map. She pointed to the finger of the peninsula, the place where her village had been. "I know this place. It once supported a village of five hundred. It will be suitable for us."
"Have to go further south, around Mount Ahya," Hasina said. "I know this topography. If we go north, it looks shorter, but the terrain is rugged. We have too many young and infirm with us."
"South, then," Lilia said. "It will take us past Oma's Temple, though. We may pick up some other refugees."
"If this place only holds five hundred, we can't take any more," Yisaoh said.
"No, but we can start creating networks," Lilia said. "We can be disparate, but we'll need ways to speak to each other. If we can't speak, we can't organize."
"Organize," Alhina said, "for what?"
Lilia cocked her head at her. "To take back Dhai, of course."
None of them said anything.
Yisaoh just stared at her, smoking. The silence stretched.
"Well?" Lilia said. "Anything else? Let's go, then."
Lilia bent and wiped away the map with her hands. She took Tasia's hand and led her back to the bear.
That night, she slept better than she had in a year, though the feral girl whined and farted in her sleep rather terribly.
Lilia stood among the last of the low summer poppies, breathing in the heady scent of them. Above her, the first of the adenoak leaves were just beginning to change. From here she could see the Temple of Oma, and the great Tai Mora army marching across the plateau to take up residence there. They had already begun setting up tends. Her group had indeed had to come south, around Mount Ahya. The journey had taken much longer than it should have – over three weeks through angry, spitting woodlands with the sick and young and injured in tow. Their route, despite their caution, took them perilously close to the temple, which they had learned by now was already fallen. She assumed the Kai and his second Catori and child were dead. Still, after weeks of exhausted trekking in the woodland, Lilia wanted to see it one last time. The army she saw now was the great Dhai army in the valley, the one she remembered hearing about as a child. This was the Dhai she had expected from the very start, and her worlds had collided.
Emlee came up beside her. "The others are asking for you," she said. "You know those Tai Mora will send scouts up here, once they are secure in the temple. We must be swift."
Lilia placed her hand on Emlee's arm, and wished, for a breath, that it was Kalinda Lasa there, Kalinda who told her what to do, where to go, or Gian, who believed in her, who had secrets Lilia would never unravel.
"We'll come back," Lilia said.
"You are the only one of them who says that. No one says that now. You sound a fool."
"Not a fool," Lilia said. "I have faith."
"A fool," Emlee said, patting her arm absently. "Come along, now. Your people are waiting for you."
Lilia turned her back on the temple and the great Dhai army, and plunged deeper into the woodland, just as the sky above her exploded.
|
(Worldbreaker Saga 2) The Empire Ascendant
|
Kameron Hurley
|
[
"fantasy",
"LGBT",
"science fiction fantasy"
] |
[] |
EPILOGUE
|
Oma's Temple, seat for five hundred years of the descendants of former slaves Faith Ahya and Hahko, was an enormous green claw soaring toward the blushing sky. Its reflective glass dome caught Sina's light, turning the plateau and all who walked up on it a fiery lavender.
Kirana Javia, descendant of conquerors and flesh dealers, entered Oma's Temple through the front gates, bathed in Sina's light. The doors opened for her and her retinue without force or violence. This was the one plan she had needed to go off without incident, and it pleased her to find it working perfectly. It had taken her army most of the summer season to clean up Kuallina and clear out the villages between there and Oma's Temple. Many orchards and fields were burned by the Dhai in their retreat, and cleaning up the fields and planting a late autumn harvest had been one of her army's higher priorities. Now, on the cusp of autumn, she had arrived. Kirana slipped off her bear in the front gardens and passed the reins to kennel keepers who were clearly not her people, but cowering, wide-eyed Dhai. Until she could replace them, they would need some cowed Dhai to remain in service.
She expected to see Nasaka at the bottom of the grand tongue of the steps, eagerly awaiting her, but instead she found a mincing little boy called Pasinu. He said he was Nasaka's assistant, and apologized for Nasaka's absence. Kirana suggested they go up and find her, as Kirana was in a jolly mood, and she wanted to meet Nasaka here in her own world, finally, in the flesh, and conclude their decade-long deal for the handover of the Dhai temples.
Pasinu led her upstairs, where she saw the first of the bodies – all children and young people – their limp forms stacked neatly outside classrooms like corded wood. They had died without much fuss, which Kirana counted a blessing. She had ensured Nasaka had enough help to wipe the place clean well ahead of her arrival. She marveled at how well the taking of the temples had gone – clearing out all the full Oras, tying them up at Kuallina for weeks, giving them just enough time to feel they may triumph before she crushed them, had made the temples easy to infiltrate and control with a minimal amount of damage. Remarkable, that after all this time some grand scheme of hers had finally paid off. Walking through this temple after a decade of war and strategy and planning, after so much had been lost, after so many failures, was deeply satisfying.
She pushed open the door to Nasaka's study. Nasaka's body lay prone on the floor in front of her desk, riddled with at least two dozen stab wounds. Blood smeared the floor, the desk. Bloody footprints came all the way from the desk to the door. She even saw blood on the bookcases. It was the most brutal death she'd seen in the whole temple.
"I see she finally ate what she sowed," Kirana said.
Behind her, Pasinu gasped. "Who–"
"Settling grudges during coups is a popular pastime," Kirana said. "I suspect whomever assaulted her escaped cleanly."
"Perhaps it was a novice–"
"No," Kirana said. "This was very personal." She stepped away, and shut the door behind her. It made things easier, though. "As her assistant, I expect you to give me a full briefing," Kirana said.
"Of course."
"We have great plans for this little temple, and its sisters," Kirana said.
It took a day to clean up the temple in a way that Kirana deemed presentable. She went through room after room, reassigning quarters to jistas, her squad commanders, the star gazers, logistics, supply heads, and various support staff. She walked into the great Assembly Chamber at the top of the temple and admired the sky writ large in the atrium.
As they prepared to open a gate to admit her family, she tarried in the Kai quarters, sighing over all the things that needed to be replaced. She pulled open the curtains and stared out over the vast woodlands. Reports told her that many had retreated there. She already had squads in pursuit. She still needed Yisaoh.
Yisaoh. She turned away from the window. Something flashed in the sky, and she went back, squinted. Sina blazed merrily in the sky, but something was folding in on itself just to the east of it, pushing into the sky like a fist through wet tissue paper.
The sky flashed red, and the blazing eye of a star she had seen only in books appeared in the sky.
Kirana ran from the window, yelling for her omajistas.
"Up here!" she called. "Open the wink here! Call my children in! Let them see this!"
The two omajistas came up the stairs, huffing.
"Can you feel it?" Kirana asked.
Oma, finally risen after all this time. It was glorious.
"Heaven above, yes," the woman, Mysa, said. A smile split her haggard face. "You want a wink, Empress?" She held out her hands, and parted the seams between the world as if carving through a brick of warm lard, with not a drop of blood in sight.
Kirana clapped her hands like a child. She caught herself, but only just. She laughed so hard she put her hands over her mouth to stop herself. The omajistas, too, were merry, perhaps too merry, but after all the horror of the last decade, it was welcome.
She saw Yisaoh on the other side, sitting up from her work.
"Oma!" Kirana said. "Yisaoh! Send the children! Oma is risen!"
Yisaoh rushed outside Kirana's frame of vision.
Kirana called to the other omajista. "Go downstairs and open up a wink on the plateau. Start bringing them through, anyone you can. All of them. What we can't support here, we'll send to Dorinah."
Gaiso would have Dorinah in hand soon enough. They already controlled half of that country.
Yisaoh returned with the girls. The two youngest clung to her, but the eldest, Moira, came boldly forward.
Kirana strode through the wink, popping out onto the other side, and embraced her family. Yisaoh held her tightly. The children grabbed fists of her clothes.
"We took the temple," Kirana said. "It was almost easy. You wouldn't think that took a decade of planning."
Yisaoh met her look. Kirana knew the question. She shook her head. "Soon," she said.
"Take them," Yisaoh said. "It's time."
"I'll come back for you."
"I know."
"Travel is easier now. With Oma risen, we are the most fearsome force–"
"We have been very fearsome," Yisaoh agreed, but Kirana heard the implied question, "if we are so fearsome, why can we not kill one woman?"
Kirana kissed her and stepped back through the wink, holding out her arms.
"Moira, Tasia, Corina, come through."
"Go on," Yisaoh said.
The children gazed back at Yisaoh once, twice, until she pushed them through, herding them like wayward cats.
Kirana opened her arms to welcome her children home.
It was not until Moira and Corina were safe in her arms, weeping and trembling, that she realized Tasia was not with them. Kirana looked to the wink and saw Tasia still stuck on the other side, her face pressed against the wink, fingers splayed on the invisible barrier between them. Yisaoh held Tasia's shoulders, her face stricken.
This was not the vision of the future that Kirana had promised herself.
Kirana stood in a new, vibrant world with two of her children, while one child and her wife remained on a toxic wreck of a world she had killed millions to free them from. For the first time since the beginning of the Great War, the Empress of Dhai, Divine Kai of the Tai Mora, wept – and the baleful eye of Oma bathed her in bloody light.
After all this time, the war Kirana had waged for the survival of her people was not over.
The war for this world had just begun.
|
(Worldbreaker Saga 3) The Broken Heavens
|
Kameron Hurley
|
[
"fantasy",
"LGBT",
"science fiction fantasy"
] |
[] |
PROLOGUE
|
The gnarled old woman carried a box of bones up the mountain. She bent low under the weight. The winking eye of Oma watched her ascent, ever-present in the rippling cerulean sky. Its sisters – violet Sina and twinkling emerald Tira – burned just beneath its glaring red pupil; patient, waiting.
As she climbed, she cursed Oma. A habit from another life. Another world, before all the worlds began to crash together.
At her hip, she bore her weapon: a yellow bonsa branch as long as her arm, infused with the power of Para. It glowed faintly, though Para was still descendant. If the seers were to be believed, Para would enter the sky again sooner than it had in other cycles. Until then, her powers were… limited. Still substantial, but limited.
The bones were a boon. The sole find of any value from her long, disastrous trek over the Kalai Mountains and into the lawless wilderness of warring states in the Tordinian valley to find a bit of ephemera kept safe for two thousand years by a race of slavering, gold-skinned interlopers. The interlopers were dead, burned out, but their storerooms and altars and thrones and the like had remained intact. Whatever force obliterated them had not returned for a second encounter. Kalinda certainly did not blame them.
She had tumbled through a rent in the fabric between her world and this one the year before, eager to begin again after losing everything. She had been a powerful figure, once. A world had bent at her word. She had promised to save them from the sky.
She had failed.
Now she was the last of her people left alive. And there was some good she could do still. Where she had failed, another might succeed. Hope was a delicious drug; though it, too, could kill, the experience of dying hopeful was far better than the reality of dying in despair. She had seen enough people die of both to know that.
The wind picked up and pushed black thunderheads after her, swathing the satellites in their embrace. She tasted the storm on the air, and moved a little more slowly. The rain would sluice the sweat and dirt from her skin. If it rained long enough and hard enough, she might put down the box and scrub herself with a fistful of sand. It had been some time since she engaged in such civilized routines. It was easy to lose oneself during so much solitary travel.
But the thunderheads brought fine puffs of snow, not rain. The snowflakes clung to her eyelashes. Obscured her vision. Her feet ached. Her own bones protested. Snarls of lavender snowlilies bloomed along the rough path she followed, releasing little white tufts of seed into the drifting snow. The seeds were poisonous if inhaled, so she pulled her scarf over her nose and mouth and picked up her pace again.
The old woman made her way back up over the Kalai Mountains and across the charred fields of what had once been called Dorinah. She had been through here when it was still ruled by fleshy women wearing jaunty ribbons knotted in their hair while they tugged around their skinny, whimpering men, and slaves on short leads. A filthy people, certainly, like most people, but she missed their easy confidence and airy architecture. She passed villages still smoldering in the early morning light, great temples to their goddess, Rhea, smashed to dust; crimson shards of glass scattered about the wreckage.
She kept off the main roads, though they were certainly areas clearest of creeping plant-life, as the country's new masters still burned away the vegetation from the roadsides to keep them clear. She rested during the height of the day, when Tai Mora patrols could be found on the roads and in the otherwise abandoned streets of the small settlements.
One evening she took shelter in an old hair salon, the mirrors shattered, tattered ribbons collecting in the corners with dust and mice droppings. She caught her broken reflection in one of the larger mirror pieces, and recoiled. Surely no one would recognize her, in this disheveled state? But the Tai Mora had been running reconnaissance on her world for years, as she had on theirs. A few would remember Kalinda Lasa the Unmaker, and how her world had crashed around her, tipped into disorder and ruin by the Tai Mora. She could not risk being recognized.
As Kalinda came to the great forked pass that raked a seam between the Liona Mountains that had once separated Dorinah and Dhai, two Tai Mora scouts riding great white bears called her to a halt. They were hale women, though not quite so fat and satisfied as Kalinda had imagined the Tai Mora would be here. Spring was a hungry time.
"Where are your papers?" the elder of the two barked.
Kalinda bent her head, and spoke in Tai Mora. "Here, in this box."
"Open it then."
"Alas, my fingers are stiff with cold."
With a huff, the elder ranger slid off her bear and took hold of the box of bones. Shook it. The bones shuddered, making the box tremble. "That doesn't sound like papers."
"I have been collecting this and that." Kalinda murmured the Litany of Breath, seeking the power of distant Para. Her sensitivity to the blue star was unmatched, but the effort it took to find a trickle of its power required the utmost concentration.
The ranger pulled open the box.
Kalinda mimed the Litany of the Spectral Snake and wrapped both rangers in skeins of air. The dark wounds on the women's wrists bloomed with everpine weapons, snapping toward her, but they were too late. Kalinda crushed them both, pinning the weapons to their bodies. Their faces ballooned. Legs kicked. The old woman squeezed the vital juices from their bodies. They burst like spent melons.
The lifeless sacs of the rangers keeled over, spent.
Kalinda grew dizzy. Vomited. Her hands shook with the effort of summoning and directing all that power from a descendant star. For one less skilled than she, holding Para would have been impossible.
Hungry and shivering, she rooted through the rangers' saddlebags and ate everything that appeared edible. The bears, their forked tongues wagging at her and paws churning up the soil, she sent on their way. Traveling by bear would be too conspicuous. She had only made it this far unmolested because few thought to question a poor old woman laboring around with a battered leather box. More fool the rangers, for being the first to tangle with her.
She slept for two days in a blackberry bramble, recovering her strength. When Oma blinked at her the third day, she continued her trek, winding through the ruins of the pass where once a great stronghold called Liona had sealed one country from another. The Tai Mora had carted off much of the building material to serve some other purpose. The Tai Mora were good at that, building their little hives atop the detritus of conquered civilizations. Even the timber here had been cut and loaded into wagons. She passed the corpse of a great bonsa tree lying on its side, the trunk so broad it would take three people standing fingertip to fingertip to span its diameter. The road here was well-trod, much busier than Dorinah, and smelled of tangy sap and moist, thawing soil. Great wagons pulled by mangy dogs and matted bears rolled over the hastily graveled road, moving to and from staging areas for troops and enslaved farmers. Kalinda suspected the Tai Mora were already regretting not bringing more farmers with them.
Kalinda kept her hood up and trudged across the country that was once called Dhai. Those around her called it Novoso Mora now: "Our People Reborn." She passed newly tilled fields and charred groves being cut down by Dhai slaves and their Tai Mora masters, and she wondered how many of them would survive to harvest, let alone survive what the sky had in store for them. The air changed as she traveled through the toxic churn of wooded areas between old clan holds. Warmer, wetter, and yes, she smelled a hint of rot, still, as if the soil were so thick with the moldering dead that it could not help but stink of them.
Up and up she went, finding it more difficult to avoid the press of people: Tai Mora rangers on their white bears; retinues of jistas in purple and red, green and blue robes; Dhai slaves wearing leather collars as they cleared fields of toxic plant life; traveling merchants calling out their offerings, mostly baubles, not enough food; high, garish laughter and jokes about cannibals from mercenaries getting their rotten feet tended by tirajistas – a bustle of humanity far too large for the area to ever support. Where the forests and toxic woods had been, thousands of makeshift tents stood in neat rows along the roadsides, like grave markers.
Kalinda spent evenings sleeping outside the old wayhouses, eavesdropping on the travelers. Hunger was on their minds, and fear of the free Dhai who had taken up in the Woodland. She smiled to hear of that, because any people who could unsettle the Tai Mora were surely her allies. Her allegiance was not misplaced.
To avoid the crush of people near Oma's Temple, she approached it from behind, up through the woodlands, hacking at poisonous balloon flowers with her machete, arms already prickled with a red rash caused by some terrible weed or other. After several hours, she reached a field of dead poppies overlooking the temple proper. The seams between the worlds were soft here; she had learned to sense it. She listened for other travelers in the woods, perhaps those she waited for, but heard nothing but the rustle of treegliders newly woken from their winter slumber.
Satisfied, she dumped the box at her feet and lay in the broken grass and withered flowers and slept another half a day. When did calling on the power of the satellites become so exhausting? Old age was ridiculous. This was a ridiculous time to be alive.
She woke to the sound of soft footsteps. Bird song. The smell of acrid bonsa sap. Crackle of crunching poppies.
"So you came," Kalinda said, and turned to find the girl there, flanked by two very young jistas with dark mops of messy hair. Kalinda had a mind to wipe their mouths and smooth their hair for them. The whole lot of them needed a wash, as did she, which made her appreciate their company all the more.
"I know your face," the girl said.
"It's a time for familiar faces. I know yours as well."
"Is your name Kalinda?"
"It is. And you are Lilia."
This Lilia was in a terrible state, far worse than the one Kalinda had known on her world. The girl before her held a stout walking stick and leaned heavily to one side, favoring her twisted foot. Shiny roundish scars peppered her face, and one of her hands was new and soft, clearly a replacement for one long gone. The other, which clutched the staff, lacked tension in the little finger. She wore an absurdly large bearskin coat, and beneath it a too-big tunic and trousers hung from her slight, gaunt frame. Her eyes were sharp in her sallow face, and dark bruises beneath her eyes made her gaze appear larger, more weary, than that of a woman thrice her age.
Poor child, this.
Behind the girl and her jistas, something rattled in the bushes. Kalinda expected a dog, or a small bear, but it was another girl, hunched over, eyes smooth pools of flesh, twisting her blind face this way and that, sniffing and tasting the wind. She settled next to Lilia as if they were close companions.
Lilia patted the girl's shoulder with her soft hand. "Did you help me, on your world?" Lilia asked, gazing not at Kalinda, but at the disfigured girl pressed against her.
"No. I ruled that world, before I lost it."
Lilia did not look convinced. "You tried to help me, here," she said. "Was there someone like me over there?"
"No," Kalinda lied, because the truth was always far more complicated. "But I understand your need. And I've brought a gift, as I said in my letter."
"I wondered what sort of Kalinda you were," Lilia said. "I assure you, there are more jistas nearby, should you attempt anything deceptive."
Kalinda cackled. "Oh, child, I could crush the breath from your body in a wink."
One of the jistas stepped forward. The air thickened.
"No, no," Kalinda said, waving her hand. "I'm not here for that. I wanted to meet you personally, to gauge how serious your little rebellion truly is. They complain about you burning their wagons, down in the valley."
"We will do worse than that," Lilia said, "but for now we prefer to be but biting flies. In the days after we fled Kuallina, I promised my people we would take back Dhai. A year later, I'm nearly prepared to make good on that promise."
"Oh child," Kalinda said, "don't you know that now is the time for coming together? Not breaking apart. That's why I've brought you this gift. You will need it, for where you're going. The Tai Mora have found the fifth temple, the People's Temple, long buried beneath the sea. But it's missing a very vital piece."
"How do you know that?"
"Because I'm the one who took the piece." Kalinda nodded to the box. "There is a great warrior in there, and within them, a vital piece the Tai Mora, or some other, would need in order to call on the full power of the satellites from the People's Temple."
"We've been watching their progress," Lilia said, "off the western coast, near Fasia's Point. Is that what they've been dredging up? A whole temple?" She shook her head. "Mad."
"Not too difficult, with so many stars in the sky."
"You're giving me this… vital piece? Why? I want to take back the country. I care nothing for closing the ways between the worlds."
"Don't you? The time for worldbreakers is not over, Lilia. It's just beginning. But you can't do this alone."
The girl recoiled. "Don't use that word!" she snapped. "There's no such thing. I've been pushed and pulled by others using that word for me, and it was all a lie. There's no grim purpose, no chosen one, nothing to save us but ourselves and the plans I have put together–"
Kalinda bent and pulled the top off the box. She presented the bones to the girl, triumphant. "What do you say to that, then?"
Lilia stared into the box. The bones were bound tightly in a throbbing, tangled root mass that oozed sticky green sap. Mixed in with it were dried leaves, bits of dead ivy, and a single node of intricate silver-green metal shaped like a trefoil with a tail.
"What… What is this?" Lilia said.
"A box of bones."
"I can see that. But this?" She pointed to the silver-green shape.
"It's the symbol for the People's Temple. You recognize it, don't you? I spent weeks digging through old rooms and tunnels, but it was part of the throne, of all things, that gooey silvery throne room packed with bones, and…" She trailed off. Certainly the girl didn't need to know the details.
Lilia rubbed at her wrist. Peered at Kalinda anew. "Are you a… blood witch? Is that why you think you can bring a body back that's this far gone?"
"On my world, yes. But it's not my skill alone. I found this among the detritus of another race, one that can twist a soul's memory into the shape of a root and let it rest for an age – a thousand years, or more – before awakening it again. It was simply very lucky for us that so many died trying to murder them, and I was able to retrieve these bones. Two thousand years of creeping star-magic in that wood, magic foreign even to me, but it has given us a safe place to put this silver piece of the People's Temple. Only you will know it's here."
But Lilia did not seem to hear her. She was staring past Kalinda, across the field of poppies. "When I saw you here, or, my Kalinda here," Lilia said, "so long ago, I thought you were a blood witch. Do you know what that is?"
"I do. The closer a world is to yours, the more alike it is. Your world and mine were even closer than yours and this one."
Lilia came back to herself and staggered forward, the color draining from her face. Her jistas made to follow, but she waved them back. She bent close to Kalinda, and spoke just above a whisper, her breath tickling Kalinda's ear. "Don't talk about what world I'm from."
Ah, of course her little followers wouldn't know where Lilia was from, would not know her mother had bundled her up and stowed her here, slicing a hole between two worlds to do it.
"I know what you are," Kalinda said softly. "I know your mother brought you here from the Tai Mora's world, to save you. And she did more than that. She made it possible for this to end some other way. But you haven't chosen which way, yet. There are many possible futures, most terrible. Some good. You must decide if you truly hate yourself so much that you will murder the people from your own world, or if you will find some other way. I don't envy you that choice."
Lilia pulled away. "What if I don't want this… piece? What if I don't want to go to the People's Temple at all? It's crawling with Tai Mora. I have plans for a different assault, one that will hurt them far more easily."
"You clearly needed aid," Kalinda said, "and I've brought what I could. As I have for you always, haven't I? Some version of me."
Lilia squeezed her eyes shut. Inhaled deeply through her nose. "Stop invoking the name of someone else. You aren't her."
"But I am," Kalinda said. "We all are. Don't you understand that yet?"
"Don't twist my head," Lilia said. "Tell me about who this is, then. The soul of a great warrior?"
"Oh, it is. I chose the soul very carefully. Of course, for a body this far gone… it does require a bit of sacrifice on your part. It's nigh impossible to bring a body back that's this dead, without some… blood witchery, you understand?"
"Very well," Lilia said. "What do you want for it?"
"It's what you need to give it." Kalinda had already used up a great deal of energy fighting the rangers two weeks before. This last bit of binding would be tricky. Kalinda muttered an intricate litany, one she had not used since she was a girl, and cast a purl of breathy power across the bones. "Now I need you to spit into the box," Kalinda said.
"And… what happens then?"
"That will begin the process of binding."
"Binding… what?"
"This was a very complicated spell, child. I was not alone when I began this journey. I had two powerful sinajistas and six tirajistas with me. All gone now, but all necessary to make this possible. When you spit into the box, the warrior contained within will begin to be reborn, and will be bound to you. But you must spit into the box."
"This is mad," Lilia muttered.
"Let's leave it, Lilia," said the shorter tirajista. "She's just another old woman made addled by all this."
"A moment, Salifa," Lilia said, raising her voice to be heard by those behind her. She lowered it again and said, "Kalinda, I want the truth. About the Lilia you knew in your world."
"I told you, there wasn't–"
"That's a lie. You said your world and mine were closer than this one and mine."
Kalinda hummed a bit, an old lullaby, but Lilia did not react to it. A shame, really. She must not have raised this Lilia as long, here. "I trained you to be a great warrior," Kalinda said, "to fight at my side. To come with me to this world and storm the People's Temple and take control of the transference engine at the center of it and remake the world. I trained you to be a worldbreaker there. You were a powerful omajista, more powerful than any we encountered. You could have seared every one of these Tai Mora in an instant. We had so much more knowledge of what was to come that we could train you from the time you were very small."
"…But?"
"But, yes… there's that, isn't it?" Kalinda's throat ached. She coughed. "But, well…"
"I failed," Lilia said, darkly.
"You did."
"All the knowledge, all the training, and I failed."
"That was a different Lilia. You have made different choices."
"I don't think they're better ones," Lilia said.
"You don't know that! None of us does, you arrogant little spithead."
The bones rattled in the box.
Lilia started. "What…?"
Kalinda hefted up the box. Proffered it to Lilia. "I agree with you," Kalinda said. "There is no chosen one, no absolute singular person who can turn the tide. But there are people who choose."
Lilia worked her mouth, gaze set on Kalinda, and spit into the box. "Is that enough?"
Kalinda nodded. She put the lid back on the box. "That's good." The box lay inert at her feet again.
"Nothing is happening," Lilia said.
"Patience," Kalinda said. "The warrior will awaken."
"I don't have time to wait."
"Tira's tears, child, resurrection takes time. Pack this box into a trunk – three paces long, two paces high – and throw in two handfuls of fertile soil. Leave it in a cool, dry room for… at least seven days."
"And then?"
"Then the warrior will awaken, and will be bound to you. You only become unbound in death, understand?
"Wait, does that mean… if they die, I die? I didn't agree to that!"
"No, no," Kalinda said. "But if you feel pain, they will feel pain. If you are in need, they are compelled to aid you. Come, what do you have to lose, Lilia Sona? Do you already have so many allies that you can turn down a gift from an old woman with a fond memory for who you might have been?"
Lilia stared at the box. She chewed at her thumbnail, the feathery one on her soft, still-forming new hand. "You know what drives me, Kalinda Lasa, what has driven me from the time your shadow found me here, cast out from my world into a field of poppies?"
"I do."
"Do you?"
"Of course." Kalinda raised a hand to brush Lilia's cheek, but the girl recoiled. Kalinda would have wept, but she had spent those tears some time ago.
"You continue in the face of the impossible," Kalinda said, "because you are willing to destroy the world – and even yourself – to get your revenge. I know what the Tai Mora did to you, Lilia, because they did it to my Lilia, too."
Lilia's grip on her walking stick tightened. The little blind girl at her feet whimpered. "It's all right, Namia," Lilia said. "I promise you we will destroy every one of them."
Kalinda held out the box one last time.
At a gesture from Lilia, Salifa took the box from Kalinda's hands. In that moment, a great weight lifted from Kalinda's shoulders. She had done all she could. For this Lilia, and the last.
|
(Worldbreaker Saga 3) The Broken Heavens
|
Kameron Hurley
|
[
"fantasy",
"LGBT",
"science fiction fantasy"
] |
[] |
Chapter 2
|
Taigan was already bored with the end of the world.
It had been a year since Oma had risen, its shining bloody face purported to herald some apocalyptic ending for this world and those closest to it. But people marched on, as they were wont to do, scrabbling and squabbling and annoying him. The world kept spinning. He kept living. The promised apocalypse was a maddeningly slow one.
Taigan found it a relief, then, when the naked man fell from the sky.
The body landed with a wet thump a few feet from where Taigan stood at the aft of a great, living Aaldian cargo ship. The body kept its shape… all but one testicle. A single gonad popped free, like a shiny white egg. Taigan had a moment to wonder at the absurdity of that: not just a naked man falling from the sky but that the body had excreted its gonad on impact, like some dim bird shitting an egg.
A jagged tear rent the blue-violet sky directly overhead, revealing the amber-tinged atmosphere of some other world beyond. Dark shapes moved in the wavering rent in reality. The seam rippled, then closed, sealing Taigan's world from the other just as swiftly as it had appeared.
"Poor choice," Taigan muttered, though he couldn't imagine what had compelled this man to shoot himself through a rent in the sky. Certainly, that other world was dying, just as the Tai Mora's had some months before, forcing the few still stuck there to flee to yet another nearby dying world, or perish. Yet, staring at the lonely gonad, Taigan imagined the man might have had a more dignified death if he had stayed on his own world.
The crew shoved the body off the deck, muttering darkly about dire portents and desperate worlds. Birds circled and dived in the water behind them, enjoying the free meal. Taigan had not seen what happened to the gonad, but he suspected it had been a delicious treat for some sea bird.
Taigan lifted his nose to the salty air. Beneath the brine he detected a more familiar scent: the taste of ruin. It was a heady mix of acrid kelp and charred flesh that filled his nostrils even in his dreams. It smelled like home. A home that no longer existed. Perhaps that's why he had been drawn back to this doomed place.
The ship rounded a rocky spur, revealing the source of the smell: the harbor once called Asona, gateway to what had once been the kingdom of Dhai.
Taigan had been present for the harbor's destruction, and remembered it as a smoking heap of wreckage. It was early spring, and the world the Tai Mora invaders had built for themselves on the broken backs of the defeated Dhai was quickly unfurling across the continent, despite the increasing number of interlopers able to hurl themselves from one world to the next under Oma's watchful eye.
The Tai Mora in the harbor lifted great stones using belts of Tira's breath, training vines to set the stones in place. The way they worked reminded Taigan of insects: industrious, poisonous little things with many hands. They may have been the strongest force in the world at present, but Oma's rise had signaled the assault of other worlds. They would need to fight for their supremacy against a great many more enemies in the coming years, if they did not find a way to close the seams between this world and the others.
If that was even possible anymore.
The Patron of Saiduan and his War Minister, Maralah, had believed they could rally enough omajistas to stop the incursion of other worlds, once Oma had risen. But with the Patron dead and Maralah fled, there were few of Taigan's people left to see that vision through. In truth, Taigan was not confident even the Tai Mora could achieve what his people could not. He had spent the last year roaming the decimated continent of Saiduan, killing and fucking indiscriminately. He never expected to be laid low by such increasing boredom. He needed a purpose, like the one Maralah had given him, and all the masters before her. For all his hatred of her, at least she had given him something useful to do.
Here during the end times, Taigan intended to murder as many Tai Mora as possible. Killing was something he was good at, something he understood. It's what he had wanted to do before Maralah sent him out on his mad mission to find gifted omajistas that they could train to become worldbreakers. What a farce.
When he had boarded this ship in Anjoliaa, he clothed himself in an easy illusion, tangling the breath of Oma into a web around him that bent the light and deceived the eye. A breath, a blink, and he appeared to be a shorter, darker man with longer limbs and finer features, the very image of an Aaldian he knew decades ago, when he had sought worldbreakers in that soft little country. For good measure, he wore an approximation of Aaldian clothing, the long robes and elaborate yellow vest of a scholar. He could have done up some glamor to make him look Tai Mora, he supposed, but Aaldian would garner fewer questions and expectations. Holding a glamor this many days when Oma was descendant would have been impossible. Today it was simple as breathing.
The great Aaldian ship slid into port, hugging the pier with its shiny organic skin. The fit little Aaldians sang as they worked, and the hull of the living ship pulsed in time to the rhythm of their tune.
"You see how it loves us," the Aaldian captain said, striding up next to Taigan, boots squelching on the membrane of the deck. There was but one pronoun in their language, though the captain used an honorific that indicated they had borne children. Taigan preferred just the one designation; the five genders in Dhai seemed entirely random in their application, and it confused him greatly.
Taigan said, in Aaldian, "It has been a… relatively smooth trip. I did not anticipate that. The Tai Mora have been ruthless with other races, but not Aaldia."
"The Tai Mora are content to let Aaldians ferry goods," the captain said. "For now. I suspect that will change when the Tai Mora are no longer starving and gobbling up our excess, moldering goods. We came from another place, of course, during the last cycle of the sky, bringing our ships and keeping closely to ourselves. There's no race like ours on their world. We pose no hindrance to them coming over."
"What will you… Will we do to turn them back?" Taigan asked.
The captain smirked. "I know you're not one of us," they said. "That glamor can mask your visage, but not your mannerisms, nor your accent. Are you Tai Mora?"
Taigan gave a little shrug.
The captain gazed past him at the crew, busily wetting down the decks with a mix of honey and seawater to feed the ship before letting passengers disembark; the skin absorbed the heady brew in a few moments, and the whole craft shuddered and sighed.
"I had a mind to ask you what's next," the captain said, "if you were Tai Mora. What your intentions are with our people. But if you are not Tai Mora, then… I suppose you know as much as anyone else."
"I couldn't say what the Tai Mora will do. But I can point to what they have done. Surely their past actions are a great predictor of what the ultimate fate of Aaldia will be."
"Indeed. I have told many this, but they insist it could be different with us. The Tai Mora have sent emissaries to the Five Monarchs promising peace."
"As they did with the Dhai, and the Saiduan before them. And here we are." Taigan gestured to the bustling Tai Mora in the harbor.
"Yes," the captain said. "But perhaps we should wait and see. Give them a chance."
Taigan barked a laugh at that. He could not help it. The optimism of the doomed was the same in every country.
The crew put out the rolling tongue of the gangplank, which slopped into place on the pier, and two Tai Mora customs agents squelched aboard the quivering ship.
Taigan pulled on his hat. "Luck to you, then, captain."
"And to you," the captain murmured, and went to greet the customs agents.
Taigan waited his turn for interrogation by the agents, joining the little queue of other passengers. During his year of self-imposed exile, Taigan had found there were many more things he could accomplish with Oma in the sky – wonderful and terrible things. The Tai Mora probably had, too. That made this trip interesting.
And, above all else, he craved something interesting.
When he reached the head of the line, he gave the agents his passbook, which he had lifted from some poor Aaldian back in Anjoliaa.
"What is your purpose in Tai Mora?" the older agent asked.
Taigan said, in Tai Mora, "Visiting a man about a dog."
The agent's eyes narrowed. Taigan poked at her with a thread of Oma's breath to ensure she was not some gifted omajista who could see through his illusion. Omajistas were still very rare, even among the Tai Mora, but caution cost him nothing.
He felt no resistance from the agent; she was ungifted. If she thought him suspicious, it had only to do with his attitude, not his glamor.
Taigan descended onto the battered pier, picking his way across algae-smeared bonsa wood planking quivering with small sea worms. It was high tide, the only time when ships as large as the Aaldian one could dock in the harbor. The three moons as well as the satellites – Oma, Tira, and Sina's shining violet pearl – tugged hard at the oceans. The tides would be worse still when the final satellite, Para, rose. When that would be, Taigan had no answer, though the chatter among the Tai Mora back in Anjoliaa indicated that their stargazers felt its rise was imminent. All of the stories and legends and texts from the breaking of the world – even the mosaic at the top of the Dhai's Temple of Oma – showed a brief period in which all the satellites would enter the sky. That was the time of the worldbreaking. And here he was, wandering about without a worldbreaker. He had expected far more dramatic things to happen during this momentous time, but without a proper worldbreaker to direct the satellites' power through one of the great transference engines spoken of in the ancient texts, it was just more of the same: war, famine, disease, genocide, drinking, fucking.
Dull as old boots.
The bustling harbor had but one public tavern – a holdover from the days of the Dhai when the country was underpopulated. Taigan's desire for a bath outweighed his desire to avoid the press of people. His new sex organs had only lately appeared, and he had changed the way he thought of himself, once again. He could not say he preferred one set of genitals over another, or a full beard over downy fuzz, or the various rages and flushes that came with the surge of new chemicals in his body. It was all set dressing, to him, just his body, ever in flux. But the new organs were tender, and could use a soak.
Taigan pushed into the common room and sized up its clientele in a glance. The Tai Mora were fanatical dealers in flesh; Taigan found that oddly comforting. He knew the rules of flesh. A mix of mostly Dorinah, but some Dhai, had been marked and put into service to their Tai Mora masters. Two such slaves served drinks at the battered length of the bar. They wore red collars, which bore misty tails of Oma's breath; some warded piece of chattel management, likely. How odd, Taigan thought, that the Tai Mora Kai, the Empress, had chosen to keep some of the Dhai in service instead of murdering them. Perhaps murdering the last few Dhai didn't matter anymore, as the Tai Mora's world had already disintegrated behind them. What a kindness, then, if Taigan chose to burn down the tavern after he left it. Do them all a favor.
As he finished paying for a room and a bath, two raised voices caught his attention. A stooped Dhai boy exchanged a few words with an older, elegantly dressed man, who was likely Tai Mora. The boy was most certainly a slave, though he wore no collar, and should have known better than to raise his voice in mixed company. The older man hit him. The boy cringed, apologized, and limped out the door as the elder yelled about obedience. It reminded Taigan of his own youth. His frustrated mentor. Like that boy, Taigan had to adjust to a different fate than the one he had desired. At least, over the last few hundred years, that fate had kept him busy.
The young man's gait reminded Taigan of someone. Taigan had lived so long that faces often blurred into one another; it didn't help that all the Dhai looked alike to him. Even the old man was familiar.
Taigan settled into his room – he had requested a single, and paid exorbitantly for it – then enjoyed his bath in the bathing house at the rear of the tavern while the little Dhai slaves laundered his clothes.
As he was getting out of the bath, the boy with the stooped gait entered, carrying fresh towels. The boy averted his gaze as he drew the water in a nearby tub – most likely for his master.
Taigan scrutinized him. The boy was pretty, though he certainly would have been prettier if he put on some weight and had a few days' rest. Dark circles pooled beneath his eyes, and his hair was lanky and unwashed. The boy noted Taigan staring, and peeked back at him. His eyes widened.
"I was right," the boy said. "It is you. I knew it. I told Dasai I'd run his bath early, and see if you were still here. To make sure it was you."
"I know your face," Taigan said. "Why is that?"
"Are you serious?" the boy whispered, switching to Saiduan. "How could you not remember me? I begged you to take me to Saiduan, to teach me how to fight. You took Lilia instead. And… and you saved my life. You don't remember that?"
It came to Taigan, then, that face. "You're Rohinmey," Taigan said, "the novice from Oma's Temple. The one who can see through hazing wards." Taigan laughed at the memory of the boy scattering yams and rice all over the floor when they first met. "That was a strange year. I suppose I'll run into more of you as I head south. You Dhai have a strange way of surviving."
"You're warded? But I can see–"
Taigan shrugged. "A simple glamor. I suppose it's a type of hazing ward. I admit I was uncertain whether those with your gift could penetrate them. A good lesson. I will take precautions among very gifted parajistas like you. Or perhaps simply annoying ones."
"How are you alive?"
"I could ask the same of you."
"What happened to Lilia? Did you take her to Fasia's Point? Or Saiduan? Did you leave her in Saiduan?"
"To… where?"
"She hoped to find her mother at Fasia's Point. It was in the Woodlands, along the sea… The symbol? Oh, it doesn't matter. It was… a long time ago. I was hoping maybe she got out, before… all this. But the Tai Mora are there now. They've unearthed a great temple near Fasia's Point. Or, rather, pulled one up from the sea."
"Ah, yes. I remember a trek through the woodlands, to some cocooned forest that stank of the ocean. I caught up with her properly soon after, but she became more trouble than she was worth."
"Where is she now?"
"I have no idea."
"What did you do with her?"
"That's a very sordid tale. Don't you belong to someone? Surely you have more pressing concerns. Like your own survival. Or your death? I could kill you if you wish. I'm here to murder a great many people."
The boy's face darkened. Poor little Dhai. "No," Roh said. "I intend to live. I'm traveling to Oma's Temple. I told them I can work the transference engines, the ones that help close the way between the worlds."
Taigan started. "What's this? You think you're some worldbreaker? I can assure you that you aren't."
"I told you, we found out how to use the temples, in Saiduan."
Taigan rolled his eyes. "There's no worldbreaker. No guide to show us how to close the seams between things. We have only ourselves, now, and our choices."
"I told you, I found–"
"Good for you. And where is that find of yours, now?"
Roh's face flushed. He bent his head.
"That's what I thought." Taigan found the optimism of slaves wearying. "All lost or taken or destroyed. You know what I wanted to be when I aged? A conqueror. And you, what did you want to be? You wanted to change your fate, yes, I remember. You wanted to be a sanisi. We can't all get what we'd like. We must act with what we've been given. I failed. You failed. Everyone failed. Might as well enjoy ourselves."
"It's not too late. You think once the Tai Mora have access to the power of the transference engines inside the temples that all they can do is close the ways between the worlds? The power they could unleash is far worse than that. They could… break the world. Sink continents."
"Maybe the world needs breaking," Taigan said.
The door opened, and the old Tai Mora man who'd been arguing with the boy entered. Roh turned his gaze to the floor, and Taigan reached for a towel. The old man gave them both a once-over, then barked at Roh to check the bath water, which was nearly overflowing.
"You should be better to the boy," Taigan said, in Tai Mora. "These pretty little cannibals have no experience with servitude."
The old man peered at Taigan, and for a moment he wondered if the man could see through the glamor, but no: he was a sinajista. Taigan could sense that.
"Best he get used to it, then," the old man said. "As should you. Aaldia is next, you know, once we finish with the Dorinah."
"What a relief," Taigan said. "We've gotten so tired of self-rule."
The old man's shocked look made Taigan smile. Taigan reached forward, hand poised to snap the old man's neck.
Roh threw himself between them. "No!" he cried.
Taigan laughed. "They have you cowed already," he said, in Saiduan, and took up his coat. "If you think that old man's status will protect you, you're sorely wrong. All of you are going to die. By my hand or some other."
The old man barked at Roh again, but Taigan was already in the hall. He went upstairs to wait for his laundry. What fools these Dhai were. What a fool he was, to be here to witness it.
He sat on the edge of his bed and gazed at the street below. Why was he here? To kill and maim, certainly, because it sounded like a fine way to spend the end of the world. But what if the boy was right? What if there was still a way forward that didn't end in destruction? Taigan had been told his whole life that he was special, gifted or cursed; that his inability to die and Oma's blessing were meant for some greater purpose. But that had come to nothing. He was just an assassin, a sanisi, like any other. If anything, he was simply an abomination, a random result of an infinite number of dice rolls thrown by the gods.
Without Maralah to tug him about as that old man pulled the boy, he had become shiftless. Indecisive. He could not die. Alcohol did not affect him. Poisons worked their way through his system cleanly and efficiently. He had no choice but to live. Maybe he hoped that if he killed enough Tai Mora, one of them would figure out how to kill him.
Encountering the boy had made him question too much. Killing was such an easy solution. He could have snapped that old man's neck and the boy would have been free. But then what? Then what, indeed. It was what he asked himself, every day.
Taigan called for his laundry. He pulled on the still-wet small clothes and exited the tavern the way he had come. Lashing out at the old man had been foolish. That man could summon a patrol, or worse, and Taigan had spent enough of his years inside prisons – hacked and slashed and murdered over and over – that he did not relish the thought of going back quite yet, not when he had just arrived.
He moved through the press of people: sweat-slick stevedores, a few Aaldian merchants collecting absorbent sums for moldering sacks of grain, and above all, the watchful eye of self-styled Tai Mora "guardians", an armed and usually gifted force that he had seen in Anjoliaa as well, all clad in long blue tunics, black armbands, and soft bearskin boots. These were different than the soldiers, something new the Tai Mora had created for policing civilian spaces. The guardians were concentrated at the harbor gates, hands folded over infused weapons, which glowed blue, green, and violet. No omajista-infused weapons, Taigan noted.
As he came into the shadow of the great harbor gates, its massive stones bound by living ropes of blue-green vines, a scream sounded behind him.
Taigan stepped back, reflexively. A body tumbled from the sky. It thunked against one of the bulging vines above and landed ten paces ahead of Taigan, nearly crushing one of the guardians. The body came to rest with an odious sound of burst melon, limbs splayed, limp as a discarded marionette.
The body drew the attention of nearby guardians and numerous gawkers, perhaps some hoping to steal a trifle thrown free of the corpse, others just morbidly curious.
Taigan took advantage of the distraction to pass unmolested through the massive bonsa wood gates. He tilted his head up as he did, and saw that bodies in various states of decay swung from great cages hung on either side of the archway. Tatters of flesh still clung to some of the oldest bones. Fresher bodies teemed with flies. The constant sea wind blew away the stench of them. One body lay pressed with its face to the bottom of a cage, eyeball bulging at him. Just skin over bone, most of the hair gone, mouth stretched wide and silent. As he watched, the eyelid fluttered, blinked.
Taigan trailed his hand over a bit of the twining infused tendrils etched into the face of the doors, which also bore charred scars from the Tai Mora assault. The arch of the gateway soared above him, three hundred paces high, testament to some other civilization, certainly predating the Dhai. The infused tendrils glowed faintly green, and bore an inscription that read, in Dhai: All who receive entrance are welcome, which Taigan found absurdly funny as the bodies above rattled in the wind.
Coming through the other side of the thick walls, which were easily thirty paces or more thick, the babbling of the harbor-goers receding, he wondered if he should be offering his services to these industrious people instead of simply killing them. But did that make him any different than the boy, seeking a master to give him purpose?
He was so very tired of losing.
"If you live long enough," his mentor had told him when he was a child, "all the worst this world has to offer will happen to you. But live long enough, and all the good things will happen, too."
If only, Taigan thought. If only.
The sky seethed. Taigan pulled his hat low over his eyes, and entered the kingdom of Tai Mora, still uncertain of his destination, but anticipating a delightfully tumultuous journey.
|
(Worldbreaker Saga 3) The Broken Heavens
|
Kameron Hurley
|
[
"fantasy",
"LGBT",
"science fiction fantasy"
] |
[] |
Chapter 3
|
Kirana Javia Garika, Kai of the Tai Mora, Empress of the Known Worlds, and Founder of Novoso Mora had won her decade-long campaign to overtake the mirrored land and bring all but a fraction of her people to safety. She was the most feared sentient being across dozens of worlds.
She had expected that rising to such prominence would make her more cheerful. Instead, it left her anxious and irritable, plagued by dreams of burning worlds that tore away from the blank black canvas of the universe like charred paper, revealing her wife's face, a face whose flesh bubbled and sloughed away, ruined by the force of a searing volcanic wind billowing from an amber sky.
She shivered now under the double helix of the suns, which sat directly overhead. Kirana squinted and raised her hand to her eyes, peering at the great shivering mass her jistas had raised from the bottom of the ocean just off the northeastern coast of what had once been Dhai.
She stood on a narrow sandbar, five hundred paces from the proper shoreline, joined by one of her stargazing omajistas, Suari, and Madah, her intelligence officer. She had tried to keep the number of people who knew about this operation limited, but there were spies in her temples. Every month her intelligence forces found another traitor and made an example by hanging their bodies up on the harbor gates for all to see. But it had done no good. It wasn't only captive Dhai and Dorinah who had turned on her, which made it worse. The hungrier her people became, the crueler the choices they had to make here, the more her own people sided with those they had conquered. It was the very worst betrayal, to have saved them all from annihilation only to lose their loyalty in the aftermath.
Cold, briny wind buffeted the sandbar, nearly taking Madah, the slightest of them, off her feet. Madah staggered and found her footing, bracing herself by digging her heel into the sandbar. Two scholars and another stargazer huddled nearby, just to the left of the wink that Suari had opened to bring them all here from Oma's temple.
It had been several days since they dredged the thing onto the sandbar, and Kirana was still not used to the sight of it. What had once presumably been a true temple with stone facades and sweeping arches and domes, tamed into being by generations of Dhai jistas, had shed its non-organic trappings, laying bare what she could only call the monstrous pulsing heart of some mythical beast. Like a living leviathan dragged from the deep, the mass of it towered over them, waves breaking around its gooey, barnacled base. The great beast was bound in large, tirajista trained vines that served as scaffolding for a dozen or more soldiers and tirajistas who worked along the skin of the pulsing mass, seeking an entrance. They had been at it nearly three days, and Kirana had yet to see any progress.
"You've yet to convince me this isn't a sea creature," Kirana said, raising her voice above the wind.
"Even a sea creature would have an orifice," Madah said, hugging her arms to her chest. She wore a heavy bearskin coat, and sea foam collected around her slender ankles. "Maybe it's some embryo, going to hatch a beast."
"Five temples," Suari said quickly, consulting a parchment containing diagrams he had laboriously traced from the book they still called The Saiduan Tome because they had yet to decipher its actual title – or anything else written in it. The little Saiduan ataisa who had washed up with it had remained close-lipped about its origin and contents, despite the most persuasive efforts of Kirana's interrogators.
The wind caught at the edge of the paper, nearly tearing it in two. Suari clutched it to his chest, frantically rolling it back under his robe. "The symbols on the map in the Assembly Chamber match the locations of each temple. The trefoil with the tail marked this spot. This has to be the primary engine. The one where the power of the satellites is concentrated, the one a worldbreaker can use to manipulate the heavens. We are still working out the precise language in the book, of course, but the symbolism is clear. This temple, on the original map in the book, is sitting on a whole continent, in precisely this location, relative to the rest."
Kirana waved at him. "Yes, I've heard this," she said. "Logically you're correct, but look at the fucking thing."
"I understand," Suari said. "I'm sure once we're inside–"
"And when will that be?" Kirana asked.
"I'm afraid, I still… we still have no timeline, I mean, unless you, Madah–"
"Don't dump this on me," Madah said. She turned to Kirana. "We got it up from the bottom. Suari and his scholars said they'd know what to do with it after that. This has got to be it, because there's nothing else down there."
"So it's either what we're looking for, or what we're looking for doesn't exist," Kirana said.
"Precisely," Suari said, as if she had said something particularly insightful.
Not for the first time, Kirana wished she had left him behind, and raised up some other omajista with the knowledge necessary to navigate this moment. Too late to start over, alas.
Everyone who could be evacuated from her world had been, in the days after she took Oma's Temple and obliterated what remained of the free Dhai in the valley. The few who could not cross over to this world because their doubles still lived on Raisa had to be moved to a secondary world, one that wasn't disintegrating quite as quickly. Those displaced souls included her own wife, Yisaoh, and their child, Tasia. It was a bitter reality, a decision that wrecked her heart and her ego, and it kept her up at night, after the nightmares roused her. Where could she move them next? For how much longer?
Patrol after patrol had spent the last year murdering Dhai in the valley and in the Woodland. They arrived with hundreds of bodies, at first. Then dozens. Then one or two a week, until Kirana feared the Dhai survivors had left the continent entirely, taking the shadow versions of her wife and child with them. She sent her patrols to the east and south. Someone had to know where this world's Yisaoh and Tasia were. She had put an exorbitant price on the heads of both.
Finding this beast of a temple had been easy, comparatively. The logistics of moving it and keeping it intact, far more difficult. But Madah was good with logistics. She, at least, was worth the trouble. The lands of Dorinah and Dhai were at capacity, with more people coming through each day, and feeding them all and carting away their waste was a logistical battle. Madah had dumped the last few waves of refugees from their world into Saiduan, but they had little knowledge of local flora and fauna, and the land was not fertile enough for intense agriculture. Anything forced from the soil by tirajistas was of notoriously poor quality, devoid of nutrients, like eating sawdust. It filled the belly, but the body wasted. Kirana had brought them all a very long way only to face the reality that another wave of Tai Mora would be dead before the spring crops matured.
Kirana rubbed her fingers, still bearing the sooty texture of the air in the secondary world where her wife and child remained with a limited force, sealed up in a crumbling fortress along the equator, the last place there with a somewhat bearable atmosphere. That world was fading too, just as hers had. Soon Raisa would be the only nearby world safe for any of her people. Soon she would be out of options.
She raised her head to the sky again, peering past the suns to the steady, steely gaze of the satellites. "How much time do we really have to gain access to this thing?" she asked. "It took us months to break into the chambers under the other temples."
"Well, this, you see, here," Suari came up beside her, pulling out his parchment again; it crackled in the wind. He pointed to a figure at the center of a dais marked with the trefoil with the tail, which the scholars had worked out as the symbol for the People's Temple. The figure at the center, they knew, was the Worldbreaker. Four additional marks ringing the Worldbreaker were color-coded, and presumably where a single jista who could draw on the power of each star was to place themselves relative to the central core. But there were two more figures with longer written explanations that still baffled her scholars. Suari pointed to the figure that held a raised hand to the outermost circle, presumably the skin of the temple. "This figure here is no doubt meant to be a Kai, one the temples recognize. Perhaps we could try–"
Kirana loosened her glove. "It didn't work on the others."
"It's worth an attempt," Suari said. "Perhaps it has been long enough, your power great enough now, unquestioned, that these beasts will recognize you as Kai."
Kirana sneered at the great pulsing blob. She tugged off her glove and walked to the edge of the sandbar where the creature had been beached. It gave off a distinct odor, this close: not unpleasant, but still sinister, promise of both birth and rot. She found a smooth stretch of skin, greenish-black, bare of barnacles, and pressed her hand to it.
The skin of the thing was moist and almost hot: fleshy and comforting, like pressing one's fingers into the mouth of a slick and welcoming womb. It pulsed beneath her, a slow, steady rhythm, like a heartbeat. She waited, pressing more firmly, but the skin of the thing remained unchanged, as did the beat of its body.
Kirana grimaced and wiped her hand on her trousers. All she wanted to do was hold her wife. Cradle her young daughter. Create somewhere safe for them. And this is where it had led her.
"And it's impervious to all our weapons?" Kirana asked, turning back to Suari. "Even the infused ones? The ones we used at Liona, too?"
"It is," Madah said. "I even had the sinajistas bind together the same offensive spells we used at the harbor."
"You never answered my question," Kirana said to Suari. "How much time do we have?"
He shook his head. "Certainly fewer than one hundred days. The numbers in the Saiduan tome were much easier to translate than the words. A different script, and–"
"I'm aware," Kirana said. "I don't care for the details."
"As with all things to do with the satellites," Suari said, "there is a range. Once Oma enters the sky, Tira and Sina follow soon after. Para is due a year later. And once all four are visible, we have only a few hours to ensure our jistas are in place at all four temples. It's a narrow window in which they can harness all that power, but once they have grasped it, well… all signs we have deciphered thus far indicate that we may be able to draw on that power until Oma descends again. That's nearly twenty years of power. Imagine!"
"Oh, I have imagined it," Kirana said. She followed the girth of the beast up and up and up. She stood in its shadow; it was so tall that this close the thing blotted out the sky. "But what's most important to me is using that power to close the seams between this world and any others. I won't have anyone usurping me. That's our ultimate goal. Understood?"
"Of course, Kai," Suari said.
"This one doesn't like me either," Kirana said, dismissing the blob. "Take me back to the chamber beneath Oma's Temple. Walk me through that again. I want to begin choosing which jistas we assign to each temple."
"Yes," Suari said, "though I must remind you it's a bit… unstable. The temple, the beast at the heart of it, which I assume must be similar to this one, continues to be unimpressed with how we gained entrance."
"I don't care if I piss them off," Kirana said, "so long as I get what I want."
Suari put away his diagrams. He raised his arms and muttered a little omajista litany. The existing wink closed, and another snapped open. Orange light poured from the mouth of it, punctuated by the soft muttering of scholars. Kirana caught a glimpse of the scholars working on the other side in the Assembly Chamber of Oma's Temple, consulting airy illusions sketched in the air above the great black walnut circle of the center table.
"I'll stay and oversee this," Madah said. "Give it another hour and see if I can think of some other approaches."
"I want an update in this evening's daily report," Kirana said.
Suari walked to the edge of the wink and gestured for her to enter. The omajista on the other side was already making her way to the wink. Current protocol was to wait until an omajista was in place on both sides before stepping through. Having an omajista on each side had reduced the number of accidents due to Oma's fickle nature. However, it meant that the vast majority of her omajistas were constantly engaged in managing the flow of traffic from far-flung regions of her empire. It was not a popular use of them, according to the last few line commanders engaged in conflicts across the Saiduan continent and island of Grania, but it was hers to make. Transit of food stores and supplies was more important than mopping up resistance outside of Dhai.
The wink wavered. "Kai?" Suari said, "We're ready for you."
Kirana stepped through and into the Assembly Chamber of Oma's Temple. Suari followed her, and together they crossed the bustling room and descended the long tongue of the grand staircase, passing libraries full of researchers, stargazers, and parajistas, all sorting through the temple's many records in search of old plans, instructions, and diagrams like the ones that had told her about the hidden chambers beneath the temples, the ancient guts of the transference engines that the Dhai had called home for centuries.
The old records confirmed that Faith Ahya and Hahko, the Dhai founders, believed the temples were gods capable of channeling the power of the satellites. Kirana had always believed the ancient living holds of Saiduan and the temples of Dhai were magicked things created by sinajistas and tirajistas in some distant time, to capture the power of the satellites. But seeing the naked heart of them dredged up from the ocean floor made her wonder if they were older and more alien beings, harnessed by some old civilization for this purpose.
She broke into the foyer, Suari at her heels, and passed the great domed meeting room where the temple garrison went through their lessons in reading and arithmetic. She heard them chanting the equation for determining the trajectory of a projectile.
The guard at the basement entrance admitted her and Suari. She went past the bathing chambers and storage rooms to the second level of the holding cells. Most of the cells were full – the first level was where they kept their own troublesome people, those caught fighting or left locked up until they were sober enough to beg forgiveness for transgressions.
The second level was for the people who most assuredly were not theirs – Dhai who required further interrogation, a few suspected Saiduan spies, and at least half a dozen scouts from other worlds. The scouts were giving them the most trouble, because once they had been squeezed of information, all they could do with them was kill them and bury them in the pits. They were far too fervent about protecting their little rebel leader, a girl they called Light. And there was no reforming someone else's cultist.
The next level of guards let them through after confirming her ward and the week's password. She did not expect a brute attack this deep into the temple; it would be a clever double agent ruse, no doubt, hence the changing passwords.
They reached the very lowest level of the temple, or the level they had believed to be the lowest until consulting the Saiduan tome. On this level was a massive chamber filled to bursting with twisted tree roots. Kirana's scholars had found a plinth at the center of the twisting maze. The stone obelisk was carved with the symbol for Oma, and a tattered flame fly lantern lay nearby, as if someone had come down and… not come up again.
What work had been done on this level prior to her arrival was uncertain. Her stargazers and scientists had yet to reveal its purpose. She was far more interested in what lay beneath this level.
Ahead of her, a mound of rubble coated with a thick, oozing liquid lay piled up next to a gaping wound in the floor. Light beamed from below, emitted by dozens of flame fly lanterns.
Suari went on ahead of her, sweeping away the fluid on the floor with a searing tail of Oma's breath.
"I hope that stops, eventually," Kirana said.
"Vital fluid," Suari said. "The wounds keep leaking. They are difficult to keep open. Forcing ourselves into these chambers without a Kai…" He cleared his throat.
"Hopefully we won't need to much longer." She was tiring of his obsession with the temple's rejection of her title.
The months of jista assaults to penetrate this cavern – which they had found clearly marked in the Saiduan tome – had driven two jistas mad, and a cave-in had killed another. The temples were not meant to be hacked apart. They were nearly indestructible, which was why she ultimately turned the inhabitants to her cause instead of trying to take them by force. The Dhai could have locked themselves up in the temples and resisted her for years. Better to have traitors on the inside who would open the doors for her.
"I've put another ward on it," Suari said. He descended the ladder ahead of her.
The dusty air made her sneeze. As she mounted the ladder and started after him, the temple trembled again. A dollop of the gooey fluid tangled into her hair. She dropped the last foot to the floor and lifted her head.
The flame fly lanterns only revealed portions of the room, which was largely circular. The walls were the same warm green material that made up the skin of the temple. It was warmer here than above, and the walls throbbed like a beating heart, just like the blob on the sandbar. All along the circumference of the room, the skin of the temple had been scarred with raised symbols, elaborate characters that the scholars said was possibly a very old form of Dhai, but in the month since they had finally breached these levels of each temple, none had managed to decipher it.
Her scholars and stargazers clustered at the center of the room, where four bulbous plinths surrounded a low altar. With the light concentrated there from their lanterns, Kirana could see a great white webbing draping from the ceiling, connecting all the plinths to the temple itself.
Kirana approached the center of the chamber, walking across the spongy floor. A fat copy of the Saiduan tome sat at the center of the stone altar. One scholar stood over it, muttering. Kirana had already had two copies made and sent to scholars in Caisau and Anjoliaa, which were far faster journeys when one had access to omajistas and their powerful winks. Two more scholars worked at a chalkboard on the far side of the room, writing out characters and equations.
All three scholars lifted their gazes from their work and stared at her like animals spotted by a predator.
"Kai," said Himsa, the eldest, sitting next to the book, her voice breathy and urgent, "we did not expect you this early in the day."
Kirana stepped up to the altar. As she did, it began to glow, blue-green, like some living fungus. She gazed at the great round face of it. At the center was the Dhai symbol for "Kai."
She could not help herself. She pressed her hand to the center of the altar. She was, of course, the wrong Kai. The altar did nothing, as it had done nothing the last dozen times she placed her hands on it.
"Have you chosen which jistas will be posted here?" Kirana asked.
Orhin, a tall and gawky older stargazer with a habit of tugging at one eyebrow, said, "We recommend the most powerful are posted to the People's Temple. The other chambers – here – we believe that so long as those who stand in the correct niches can call the correct star, that should be sufficient."
"I'd like more certainties and fewer qualifiers like 'should,'" Kirana said.
A young scholar called Talahina had moved away from the others, and stood in front of the plinth with Para's symbol at the base. She was a distant relative of Yisaoh's, and didn't often speak without being spoken to.
"What do you see?" Kirana asked her.
"I'm just… concerned," Talahina said. "I'm sure you have heard, we have just one hundred days, at maximum–"
"I know the timeline," Kirana said.
"If Almeysia had done her job correctly–" Suari began.
Kirana waved a hand. "She did her best to sabotage that plinth she found above, tangled in those roots. But it wasn't the lowest level, clearly. And she never would have gotten down here on her own. She would have needed Ahkio, or our resources. Alemeysia was a distraction, at best, and a poor one. She failed in convincing the temple I was Kai. Let's leave that in the past."
"Perhaps you could let us speak to the ataisa again." Orhin did not meet Kirana's look as she said it, only stroked at his brow.
"We tried that," Kirana said. "Several times."
"It was some time ago," Himsa said. "Perhaps the ataisa has softened. If we tell hir how far we have come now, since we last spoke–"
It annoyed Kirana that Orhin used the Saiduan pronoun for the child, but nothing in Tai Mora fit what the Saiduan was. "You put far too much faith in a Saiduan slave. Have you no confidence in yourselves?"
"We are confident," Talahina blurted.
"What do you think, Suari?" Kirana asked.
"It could not hurt to show the ataisa what's on the sandbar," Suari said.
Kirana held out hand. "Give me a copy of the book."
Orhin snapped up the one he was consulting and handed it to Kirana. "Empress."
"Stay here and work," Kirana told Suari. "I have a meeting with my mother soon. I can visit the ataisa on the way up."
Kirana left them. She heard their voices behind her, low and urgent. Occasionally one of them would inform on another, hustle their way up to her quarters
The sinajista guard bowed to her. Kirana went up two more levels, to the proper gaol where she had kept the little ataisa who had brought her the Saiduan tome. Unwillingly, of course, but brought it all the same.
Inside, the two ungifted guards on duty played screes, a popular Dhai strategy game. They unlocked the cell she pointed to.
Kirana pulled up the wobbly three-legged stool and sat in the narrow slant of light that spilled into the cell from the doorway.
The ataisa was chained to the far wall, hands and feet given just enough chain so that ze could relieve hirself in a bucket in the corner, which was overflowing.
"I'll get them to empty that out," Kirana said. It had been several weeks since she last visited, as the smell nauseated her and she'd had far more important business to attend to. Kirana called to the guards, "Is ze eating?"
"Some bread, a bit of mashed yam," the heavier woman said.
"Water?"
"We have to make her. Won't do it on her own. Wants to waste away."
"Well, that won't do."
The ataisa did not flinch in the onslaught of light. Hir hair was matted, mostly on the left side, and what remained of hir tunic was in tatters. Hir body bore a curve of breast and a curl of cock; one of those born with a mix of sexual characteristics. Kirana had thought of the ataisa variously as a stubborn girl and an annoying boy, but settled into using ataisa because it's what her scholars used. Kirana had tried the more humane way to get the ataisa to divulge information, when her second, Gaiso, first delivered hir to the temple the year before. But the child had grown up in Saiduan. Saiduan made them tough.
"I came to tell you we dredged up the fifth temple," Kirana said. "The one central to the breaking of the world, as it's written in the book." She placed the book in her own lap, and rested her hands on top of it, palms down. "I understand your continued resolve. You crossed an ocean with this book. You understood its importance. But we are nearly at the end, here, and your silence buys neither us nor you anything, this far in the game."
Silence. Kirana wondered why she bothered. Perhaps the progress below had made her optimistic again.
"Your silence buys you nothing but more long days of darkness," Kirana said. "Help us. Give us the translation key to the Saiduan tome. Join us, and I'll get you a bath, proper clothes. You can go free, Luna. When we awaken the temples again and close the ways between the worlds, there will be nothing to fear from one another any longer."
Luna raised hir head. The feral look she gave Kirana chilled her, like looking into the face of a wild creature. Busting this ataisa down into hir most basic needs and wants was part of the exercise, but Kirana was always surprised at how easy it was to accomplish. Kirana had gotten information from far tougher people than this one by simply offering them a piece of clothing, a bath, a mango.
Kirana returned the stool to its place inside the doorway. She should send one of the scholars here, perhaps someone pretty and young, someone this ataisa could confide in. She tucked the book under her arm and beckoned the meaty guard over.
"Keep hir eating," Kirana said.
Keep eating, keep breathing, she thought, as she went back up through the temple, as if in a dream, an ascent from the very belly of the breathing beast that was Oma's Temple.
She paused on the landing that opened onto the foyer and pressed her hand to the smooth skin of the temple. "I am your true Kai," she murmured.
The beast's skin roiled beneath her. Kirana heard the distant drip of a water clock in one of the garrison offices. The ever-relentless advance of time.
One minute less. One hour less. One day less.
At the top of the stairs, she saw her mother, Javia.
Javia reached for her arm, and Kirana allowed her to take it. They stood with their bodies pressed close, and wandered out into the back gardens, neither saying a word. Kirana missed the family she had left behind; but she had her parents, at least, her cousins, friends, colleagues in arms. They had saved more than she dreamed possible.
As they came to a little stand of early blooming dandy flowers, her mother smiled and said, "Oh, how your brother loved dandy flower tea." Her voice quavered.
"It was peppermint tea," Kirana corrected, gently. Her mother had been making small mistakes more often since her arrival in this world. "It was father who loved the dandy flower."
"Ah, of course, of course," her mother said, patting at her hair. The style was a little different today: two plaited ropes instead of three. "Ahkio lost, and Yisaoh and the children…"
"Not Yisaoh. Or the children. Not yet."
"Are we doing the right thing, Kirana?"
"Right and wrong have no meaning here. There are shades of gray. Always more than two choices. Come, let's eat."
"Did we choose correctly?" Her mother gazed across the garden at a flickering rent in the sky. On the other side, a blazing amber wash. Little bits of ash and char rained over the fire river, localized as a cloud burst. A tea table stood up on a low platform that overlooked the vast chasm of the Fire River, below. Kirana set the book on the table, and manuevered her mother into one of the intricate iron chairs. She poured her mother a cup of the still steaming amber tea. Small tea biscuits lay on a plate at the center, ringed in raw fiddleheads and dandelion flowers. She suspected the biscuits would be dry and dusty, crawling with weevils, but she knew from long experience that dunking them into the tea for a few minutes would make them more or less palatable.
"The other worlds are dying," Kirana said, "or, at best, being transformed. There are no good choices." She sat across from her mother.
Her mother's gaze moved to the book. "Have you been praying?"
"No, it's the foreign book. The guide to how," she gestured at the temple, "all of this works. I was questioning the ataisa again."
Her mother pursed her mouth, as if tasting something sour. "You believe too much in the fist. You will get more flies with honey."
"I already tried coddling–"
"Show the child why we are here. What drove us. Convince that child as you convinced me. Love runs deeper than fear." She reached out and touched Kirana's hand. She had been more affectionate, since they came over. Perhaps Javia too understood how lucky they were to be alive at all. "You know that."
Kirana thought of Yisaoh, huffing in the detritus of a dying world. "I do."
Javia waggled her fingers. "We must grow their love, their loyalty. Start with this one."
"That ataisa isn't a flower you can make bloom with some huff of Tira's breath."
"Show the child, then," Javia repeated, and took up her tea in both hands. She sipped, winced. "I much preferred dandy flower."
Kirana said, "We are lucky to have the mint at all." Behind them, the temple sighed.
She lifted her gaze again to the heavens, waiting. Not long, now. Not long at all.
|
(Worldbreaker Saga 3) The Broken Heavens
|
Kameron Hurley
|
[
"fantasy",
"LGBT",
"science fiction fantasy"
] |
[] |
Chapter 4
|
Lilia herded the children toward the thorn fence, picking her way through the tangled vines and roots smothering the path. She smelled the boars patrolling the thorn fence before she saw them, a musky, pungent odor that reminded her of another world, another time, before the worlds began to come together. The dozen or so children shrieked and collected around her. She bent and showed them how to fill a shallow dish with blood and feed it to the boars.
"They help protect our encampment," Lilia said, pressing the last few drops of her own blood into the dish.
She handed the bowl to Tasia, the young orphan who had clung to Lilia since the mad retreat from Asona Harbor the year before. Tasia stuck out her lower lip and regarded the yellow-eyed boars as if they were Tai Mora in disguise.
"Go on," Lilia said. The other children held their collective breaths.
Tasia took the bowl and thrust it toward the boars' mucus-crusted snouts. The boars greedily licked up the blood, snorting and squealing for their offspring. Half a dozen spotted piglets came trotting out of the nearby bushes. Tasia's eyes lit up with delight.
"They love it!" Tasia said. "Look at the babies!"
"The thorn fence keeps out the walking trees," Lilia said. She began to rise, painfully, and the little feral girl, Namia, turned her blind face to Lilia and offered a shoulder. Lilia thanked her and heaved herself up.
Lilia's mother once told her that nothing could cross through a thorn fence, but that was not true, and she did not repeat the lie to these children. The fence did help dissuade some of the worst of what the Woodland had to throw at them, and the boars sent up loud, squealing alarms when dangerous flora and fauna approached the Woodland camp that Lilia had founded in the aftermath of the retreat from the burning ruin of Kuallina.
Tasia had grown bolder over the last year. The children had an easier time adjusting to life in the woods than the adults. Lilia had knotted Tasia's hair with ribbons, a style preferred by the dajian refugees that Lilia had brought with her into the Woodland. Tasia tugged at one frayed white ribbon as she watched the hungry boars.
"Mother Lilia," Tasia said, and Lilia did not dissuade her from calling her that, because it seemed to placate her. Lilia knew what it was to miss one's mother. "Are we safe now?"
"Safer," Lilia said. She peered up at the massive cover of the trees, so thick that in the woods below they lived in perpetual twilight. Safer than we were, she thought, but safety and comfort were a lie, out here, a dream.
Lilia had kept the Dhai alive in exile far longer than should have been possible. She knew that. Her people knew that. Even cigarette-toting Yisaoh and smirking Meyna could not argue about Lilia's role in their survival. Lilia knew the Woodland in a way that even Meyna did not, and using it to their advantage against the Tai Mora had been Lilia's idea from the very start. They only moved to a new area once the Tai Mora patrols had been over it. These days the Tai Mora concentrated their time to the south, scouring the foothills and craggy valleys around Mount Ahya. They were as safe in the north, here, as they ever would be. For a time.
"Why couldn't the boars protect Catori Mohrai?" Tasia asked, fingers sticky with blood.
Lilia tugged at Tasia's frayed ribbon and retied it. She took a few deep breaths to calm herself. Anxious panic often overwhelmed her during the strangest times. It had come more often the last few months. "They can protect us from enemies outside the fence," Lilia said, "but not enemies already inside."
"Are there a lot of enemies inside?" Tasia asked.
"I don't know," Lilia said, mindful of the other children.
"I thought we were safe in the Woodland," Tasia said, "safer than in the valley."
"We are, love." Fleeing to the Woodland had been their only option after the Tai Mora invasion. They had no access to Asona Harbor, and trying to climb over Mount Ahya and into Aaldia would have killed the old, the children – and the infirm, like Lilia, would never have managed it.
Even in the Woodland, Mohrai, the Kai's first Catori, never seemed to fully recover from her difficult pregnancy, and Yisaoh, with the loyalty of the Garika and the Badu clans, had a voice that grew stronger over the weeks and months instead of weaker. Meyna – parading around the young child she insisted was the chosen Kai – was in hale health. It was Mohrai they finally lost, and Lilia admitted that she sometimes dreamed it would be her own death next. Maybe all of them together, in one Tai Mora raid. The fear gripped her again; a racing of the heart, a sense of impending doom.
"Are you scared?" Tasia asked.
"No. Are you?" Lilia half-smiled at her own lie, because her guts roiled even as she breathed through the heart palpitations.
"Sometimes."
"We have each other," Lilia said. "I won't let anything happen to you."
A single tirajista, Salifa, stood a few paces distant, watchful for semi-sentient monstrosities from the woodland. She met Lilia's look, warning her that the conversation was being followed with great attention by the other children.
"We should go back," Salifa said. She wasn't much older than Lilia, only a novice when they fled Dhai and still not a proper Ora, but she bore an infused everpine weapon and carried herself like she had been born into the militia, puffing out her chest from the post at the fence. Her left eye sagged in its socket, gray and bleary; like the film of a rotten lizard's egg. She'd lost the eye to a bone tree not long ago, and it was still in the long process of regenerating; a possibility only with Tira in the sky. She wore a single white ribbon around her throat.
"Salifa is right," Lilia said. "You've spent enough time above ground today."
The children protested. Lilia herded them ahead, thunking her walking stick like some old woman. The children went before her, easily navigating the deliberate maze of trees and scrub that hid the entrance to what had become their semi-permanent settlement the last few months.
Lilia rubbed at her face with her soft, undersized left hand. A tirajista had cut the hand off and begun to regrow it the year before; there were a great many of them taking advantage of Tira. Lilia had been unable to grip anything due to a bad break and worse recovery. She had considered doing the same with her leg, but could not have afforded the time it took to heal. The hand was enough of an ordeal. The leg… the leg could wait until this was over.
Namia kept at Lilia's side, her ever-present shadow. Salifa, too, hung back, eying the children forging ahead as if they might sprout wings and fly away.
A rustling caught Lilia's attention, and she shrank away from the snapping violet tendril of a feeding lily. Salifa jumped between her and the lily, severing its trembling head neatly with her everpine sword.
"Li," Salifa said, "Let me walk between you and the wood, here. The tirajistas haven't been through to clean it out this morning."
"It's all right," Lilia said. "I saw it."
But Salifa remained between her and the edge of the path, mouth forming a thin line. Lilia sighed.
"This is a dangerous place," Salifa said, "and not all of that danger is from the trees."
"Mohrai died eating a hasaen tuber. It's been known to happen."
"I knew this truce wouldn't last," Salifa said.
"If someone deliberately harmed Catori Mohrai, there's no proof of it. It's best we continue to work toward our goals. Who is Catori, or Kai, doesn't matter to the greater cause. You know that. I know that."
"Even with them all married to each other, they are still back-biting and snarling. I wish they were as easygoing as you, Li."
Lilia said nothing. Silence asked to be filled, and the people around her were always quick to fill it. The marriage of Mohrai, Meyna, and Yisaoh had been Lilia's idea, soon after all the fractious groups of surviving Dhai had come together in the Woodland: a difficult, frightening, and fractured time.
"It's the unity of their marriage that saved us," Lilia said. "The Tai Mora seek to fracture us. Remember that. Always. If anyone tries to tear us apart, you must ask why. Who does it serve?"
"I know, I know," Salifa said.
"It could very well have been a Tai Mora agent," Lilia said. The walking, and the conversation, made her wheeze. She slowed and tapped at the mahuan-laced water bulb in her pocket. Her fingers still trembled when she thought about eating raw mahuan instead of the powder, to ease her breathing, but that had nearly killed her. And only living people could get revenge. She often blamed her anxiety on the lack of raw mahuan.
"Surely you don't still think they have agents among us?"
"Why not?" Lilia said. "We certainly still have our own informants among them. Why couldn't the Tai Mora have done the same?"
"They didn't expect us to live this long," Salifa said, and the pride in her voice made Lilia wince. But it was the pride that Lilia had used to her own advantage. Salifa loved to feel part of something larger than herself, something important. So many of them did. It made them pliable, easy to manipulate.
Around the next bend, Avosta met them, hand perpetually on the hilt of his standard sword, dark eyes widening at Lilia's approach. He strode toward her, offering an arm though he knew she would not take it. Avosta was another of hers: a former member of Ghrasia Madah's militia, whose gaze often made her intensely uncomfortable. He looked upon her as a god, big-eyed and sometimes bashful.
But he was useful. Like Salifa.
Avosta was a stout man with a pockmarked face and the shadow of a mustache on his upper lip. His hair was knotted back in white ribbons, a style he had insisted she show him how to manage himself. The knotted white hair ribbons had become a symbol of loyalty to Lilia, a sign in their belief that she was divine, or perhaps Faith Ahya reborn… and she had not dissuaded them from that belief. It was among the many reasons the three married Catoris did not care much for her. But she couldn't take revenge on the Tai Mora alone. It required a long embrace with what she had made of herself.
"The children are below," he said. "There were two snapping lilies here. Are you all right?"
"We're fine, Avosta," Lilia said, sighing. "I was the one to tell you all how to spot the lilies, yes?"
Avosta put thumb to forehead, a gesture of respect. "Apologies, Li, I only meant–"
"I understand. Could you give Namia and I a moment to rest?"
"Certainly," Avosta said. "I came to tell you, however, that Caisa has arrived with the week's news."
"She's much earlier than expected."
"She says there have been major developments."
"No one following her?"
"Absolutely not. I give my word on that. I've trained our rangers very well."
"Escort her to my rooms. I'll speak to her after Catori Mohrai's funeral. I need to keep my head clear and focus on this."
"I will, yes." He bobbed his head, but did not move from her path. "Are you… certain you wish to stay here alone?"
"I'm happy to stay with you," Salifa said, good eye widening.
"I'll meet you both at the tables," Lilia said. "We're quite near the village now. I have Namia, and my own gift, and I'm the one who taught you both to navigate snapping lilies."
"You have been so ill, though," Avosta said, "it's been some time since you called Oma. I understand, of course, I just don't want something to suddenly–"
"I'm fine," Lilia said.
Avosta nodded once. "Of course. Apologies."
Salifa put thumb to forehead and followed after him, but both kept glancing back at her, as if Lilia might blow away on the wind.
Big drops of rain splashed against the thick foliage above. Fitting, Lilia thought, that Mohrai's funeral should begin with rain. She waited for Salifa and Avosta to disappear in the stir of others preparing for the funerary feast before she allowed herself a breath. Being some kind of infallible prophet was exhausting.
Beside her, Namia signed, "Noisy."
"I agree," Lilia said. "But they mean well."
Ahead, in the area cleared around the great trees for public events, funerary attendants raced to cover the open fires with waxed linen; it was too dangerous to build stoves above ground, especially this close to their refuge. But the dead did not wait on the weather. They came and went at their leisure; far too many and far too quickly, of late.
Lilia stepped beneath the welcoming arms of a great bonsa tree to avoid the rain, carefully balancing on a tree root to keep her feet out of the gathering puddles. The smell of roasting flesh permeated the air. Her stomach grumbled, tightening into a needy fist of hunger. It had been just four days since the last funeral. But the meals between the funerary feasts were grim affairs. They were all starving for calories by the time another of their number succumbed to disease, age, or starvation. It made it doubly worse, then, that so many of the newly dead were children.
Namia crouched next to her, blind face turned up to the dripping canopy. She huffed at something: the spicy scent of Tordinian tobacco.
"You done indoctrinating the youth?" Yisaoh asked. She came up behind Lilia; the stink of the cigarettes still gave her away. She had kept a small cache of them for "special" occasions.
"Celebrating?" Lilia asked, nodding at the cigarette.
"Mourning, clearly," Yisaoh said, taking a long drag.
"Are you going to speak at the funeral and tell everyone how much you loved Catori Mohrai as your own sister?
"Mohrai was always a pain in the ass. Her and all of Clan Sorai, really. Meyna is worse, though. Bigger pain. Bigger ass."
"None of us are perfect."
"I'll be happy to eat Mohrai's finger bones."
"I'm sure your responsibilities will be easier shared with just you and Meyna."
"Only the two of us?" Yisaoh chuckled. "And what about you, our third leg, with her three hundred little followers flouncing about here displaying their hair ribbons like war trophies."
"I never asked them to."
"I never asked the Tai Mora to take over the country," Yisaoh said. "And here we are. Listen, Meyna bedded Ahkio for years, him and half of clan Garika. All respect for that, but it means Meyna is a social climber with increasingly strong ties to what remains of Dhai, and she's the sort who'd murder us both where we stand, probably with smiles still on our faces."
"I have no experience of Meyna in that way," Lilia said, "but she has a keen sense for how to get what she wants from people. That's a useful skill. We both agreed on that."
"I'm watching you, Lilia, and your followers. So is Meyna. Just warning you about that."
Lilia smirked. She could not help it. She rested a hand on Namia's shoulder to ease the burden on her twisted leg. Namia leaned into her. "I'm not a threat to anyone," Lilia said. "I'm just a scullery drudge."
Yisaoh choked on cigarette smoke and burst into a fit of coughing. "That's… a wonderful joke," she wheezed.
A thump sounded in the canopy above. Patter of leaves. Crackling branches. A single blue-black frog, big as Lilia's thumbnail, landed on the ground at her feet and burrowed into the loam. Snaking green tendrils wavered up from the detritus, in pursuit of it.
"Tira's tears," Yisaoh muttered, gazing up at the canopy.
"Maybe it will be a small swarm," Lilia said.
"I hate the Woodland."
They stood in silence a moment as a half-dozen more frogs tumbled from above. Lilia sighed and asked, "What is it you want, Yisaoh? I need to prepare for this speech."
"I want to know what you're going to say up there," Yisaoh said, "so I can prepare for the fallout if Meyna wants to eat your face off. You think it's me and her with the political headbutting, but it's you she hates. I'm family, painful as it may be for her to admit."
"I'll share a wholesome message about unity."
"You're a hungry little wolf."
"You're seeing the reflection of a dove in a teacup and thinking it's a snake."
Yisaoh laughed. "I haven't heard that one in quite some time. Your mother use that?"
"She did." Another frog landed on Lilia's shoe. One tangled into her hair, gripping tightly with its tiny feet. She brushed it away. "Oma's breath," Lilia said.
The patter of frogs grew louder. Namia snorted and pressed herself closer to the bonsa tree. Lilia did the same.
"Fire and fear, these frogs," Yisaoh said. "The crowd will take it for a bad omen."
"It's the season for it," Lilia said. "With all the warmer weather this spring, we'll see more of them. That's just the cycle of things."
The frogs continued to rain from above, trapping the three of them together under the spread of the bonsa. The frogs hopped across the forest floor, darting in the direction of the baleful eye of Oma. Whorls of snapping ground sage darted from their subterranean nests and dragged the little frogs back under the loam with them. Soon the frogs piled up nearly ankle high, moving like a great wave across the forest, interrupted occasionally by the burst of ground sage. The smell of sage filled the air, mixing with the scent of cooking flesh from the funerary feast.
"Meyna won't start it until this passes," Lilia said. She glanced over at Yisaoh, who had put out her cigarette but still gripped what remained of it. They had come to confide in one another, brought together by their shared experiences in Kuallina at the feast with Kirana, self-styled Kai of the Tai Mora, but Lilia knew better than to trust her completely. Yisaoh had nearly toppled the country by contesting the former Kai's rule.
"You know Meyna is pregnant again?" Lilia said.
"Of course she's pregnant again." Yisaoh spit a bit stray, spicy tobacco onto the ground. It was immediately overwhelmed by a slurry of frogs, though the worst of the stampede was over. Only the occasional amphibian dove from the canopy now. "It's something she's incredibly good at."
The tide of frogs thinned on the ground. Lilia wiped a few of them off one shoulder, and untangled yet another from her hair.
"I hate this place," Yisaoh said. She kicked at a clump of frogs, scattering them ahead of a snarl of snapping sage.
"It won't be much longer," Lilia said. "One way or another."
"What are you going to tell them, Lilia?"
"What I always have," Lilia said. "That we are strongest when we work together. That there are some of us who understand that the best way to stop the Tai Mora is to strike back against them."
"Retaliating against them is suicide. You intend to march your little followers down into that valley and start killing people? No one here knows how to kill people, not really."
"Someone likely killed Mohrai," Lilia said, "and there are Dhai militia here who fought the Tai Mora next to Ahkio. There are plenty of murderers among us. More importantly, there are those driven to fight back, as I am. Those are the ones that will help me. I've been planning a strike against the Tai Mora for a very long time."
"Any retaliation just murders more of us."
"So will doing nothing."
"A better way to unite us would be asking your disciples to stop it with the white ribbons. And you could stop holding those religious meetings like you're some kind of prophet."
Lilia studied Yisaoh's long face. Yisaoh gazed out over the funeral preparations as the attendants shooed frogs off the tables and swept piles of the dead and dying frogs away from the main speaking area. Sooty smudges darkened the area under her eyes. Her unwashed hair was twisted into a greasy tangle, held in place by old hair picks.
"What are you so afraid of?" Lilia asked. "I don't want to be Catori."
"No, because then you'd have real responsibility," Yisaoh said. "I worry every day about all these blighted people. You don't. You see them as pieces on a board."
"Don't pretend you aren't ambitious, Yisaoh. We've known each other too long. You're just worried about Meyna's child being the legitimate heir to the title of Kai, and not one of yours. Consider Meyna's child yours anyway. You are married, and you are kin. It's the same."
"I hate Meyna. More every day."
"If the Tai Mora are going to come here for any of us, it won't be me. It will be you, or Meyna, or Meyna's child Hasao."
"You certainly have a lot of little birds in those temples."
"You helped choose them," Lilia said. "I share all my reports with you. The Tai Mora need a Kai to access parts of the temple, the parts they believe will close the way between the worlds. That's why they keep coming. They won't stop until they take all three of you, trying to find out which is a legitimate heir the temples will acknowledge."
"Legitimate heir," Yisaoh said, grimacing. "Ahkio wasn't even a legitimate heir. If he was Javia's son, I'll eat my own arm."
"What matters is what the temples think," Lilia said.
"Divinity is lovely," Yisaoh said, "but so far I don't see anything bigger than us, just people like you using divinity to get ahead."
"There's something much bigger than us," Lilia said, pointing overhead. "The sky, and the satellites that inhabit it. If you have any doubt, the proof is there."
"And in the gift the sky gives you?" Yisaoh said.
"Yes," Lilia said, though she could not meet Yisaoh's look. Her stomach ached at the mere mention of her gift. If Yisaoh knew she wasn't gifted anymore, if any of them found out… Well, she could call on her beribboned supporters, she supposed. But how long would they support her if they knew she had burned herself out, that she was no Faith Ahya reborn, just a scullery drudge tangled up in events far larger than herself?
"Just don't mess this up," Yisaoh said. "I got Meyna calmed down, and you making declarations of divinity and power up there isn't going to help relations."
Yisaoh gestured to the Dhai assembling in the little gathering space above ground. It was a rare day that so many left the underground camp of old bladder traps connected by a maze of corridors.
"I don't care that they believe in you," Yisaoh said. "I'd like them to believe in something. But in turn, you need to believe in me, and Meyna, and you need to work with us, and go along with what we decide."
"That's fine," Lilia said. "I don't intend to come back from our retaliation."
"Suicide, then? You really intend to die, trying to hurt the Tai Mora? To keep them rooted here with all the other worlds invading?"
"If I die, I die," Lilia said. "If I end myself all this will go away, and I'll take some Tai Mora with me."
"Fool," Yisaoh said. "It won't go away. Only you will. It will all still be here, and you'll just be some martyr, a story, until that story dies with the rest of us."
"I've made my choice," Lilia said.
"Doing any real damage to the Tai Mora would take a miracle."
"It's Faith Ahya's ascendance day, Yisaoh," Lilia said, stepping away from the bonsa tree and toward the funerary tables, careful of the frogs. "It's a time for miracles."
|
(Worldbreaker Saga 3) The Broken Heavens
|
Kameron Hurley
|
[
"fantasy",
"LGBT",
"science fiction fantasy"
] |
[] |
Chapter 5
|
Daorian, capital of the former empire of Dorinah, was falling, and Natanial found himself inordinately pleased to be a part of it. He wanted to wrap his hands around the throat of the Empress and squeeze the life out of her the way he had squeezed the life out of her daughter. He entertained this fantasy again while sitting on a stinking bear in a cool, drizzling rain while the siege commander yelled at him.
"Head out of your ass, Natanial!" Monshara yelled, smacking the flank of Natanial's bear with her sword as she worked her way down the line of mercenaries and regular soldiers. Monshara, sturdy as a bear herself, with a mane of hair to match, led the Tai Mora assault on Daorian. She rode up to the front where her six thousand soldiers stood in neat rows, armor a little worse for wear, hair knotted, all in desperate need of a wash.
Natanial scratched at his own scalp; he had shaved his head the week before after a breakout of lice among the squad he led. Most of the hundred or so mercenaries he commanded were from Tordin. Their numbers fluctuated depending on how violent their hangovers or how debilitating their gout. He had gathered them himself after King Saradyn's disappearance left a power void in Tordin. Civil war broke out within weeks of the collapse of Saradyn's army. Natanial did not care for any of the people making claims for the country, and left it in search of some nobler battle. The Tai Mora, it turned out, were recruiting fighters to topple Dorinah. Natanial had never liked Dorinah.
"She's chipper this morning," said his second, Otolyn, who sat on a scruffy bear at his right. She was a long, lean woman that most assumed was a man; she didn't correct them. Natanial had only realized it himself when she got to talking about babies of hers back in Tordin, buried in the same grave, all dug by her own hand. She had a good head, a good sword arm, and most importantly, a dry sense of humor.
"Every day is a new day to take down the wall," Natanial said. "Makes me all warm inside, too."
"Those sinajistas in there burned half a battalion last time."
"We're not here to be heroes."
"Here she goes," Otolyn said, gazing after Monshara. "We'll likely sit this one out."
Dawn was breaking; the satellite Sina winked at them, a purple blot along the northern horizon, blinkering there next to Oma and Tira. The double helix of the suns skimmed the east, warming the gently rolling hills which still bore charred skin from their razing the autumn before.
Tordin didn't have many jistas; Natanial didn't have a single one with him. The mercenary groups like his, spread out all across the rear of the assault, were there as a show of force, and a clean-up crew if the Tai Mora jistas ever breached the wall of the city of Daorian, which hadn't happened once in the two months Natanial had been making a living out here as a mercenary for the Tai Mora.
"There they go," Otolyn said.
Monshara's battalions marched toward the walls of Daorian. Two moved off to flank the left, and two more to flank the right. The main force came from the south. Natanial suspected they meant to hammer at the same stretch of the city wall that had occupied them in the previous foray. Hitting it every day meant the Dorinah had little time to shore it up between assaults.
He sat with Otolyn up on a small embankment, their bears snuffling side by side, enormous forked tongues sniffing the air as they chewed their cud. Behind them were his fighters, a bored lot composed mostly of snot-nosed young men, criminals of all sorts, and women fleeing bad marriages and boring farms back in Tordin.
A flicker of movement from the east drew Natanial's eye. As he turned, a force broke into his view, raising the bloody eye of Dorinah on their flags. He was so startled he thought for a moment they had come out of thin air. That was entirely possible during these strange times.
Natanial cursed. Monshara's forces were still engaged at the wall; they had not seen the stealth Dorinah line yet.
"That's a good thousand," Otolyn said, shifting in her saddle to crack her neck. The sound made Natanial's spine tingle.
"Five hundred, maybe," Natanial said. "It would be impossible to get more in by ship with the Tai Mora blocking the harbor."
"Well, they did. Maybe they have an omajista opening a wink?"
"Shit." He gazed up the hill at Monshara's support camp. Flags there were being raised hastily. A horn sounded. But in the heat of the battle below, no one heard them.
Otolyn yawned. "I could use a skirmish to stretch my legs," she said.
"I suppose we should earn our keep now and then," Natanial said. "Call for an arrow formation on my call."
Otolyn signaled the flag bearers to give the order. She followed it up with some enthusiastic shouting, which was one of the reasons she was Natanial's second. She loved a good show, just as he did. There was a collective hiss and mutter of leather and armor, a shifting of melee weapons and snort of bears.
Far across the field, the Dorinah soldiers – bearing long pikes and cudgels – pounded through the mud toward the Tai Mora. Among the tawny, dark-haired Dorinah faces he saw the darker cast and bare scalps of some outer islanders, and suspected these were a force that had been stationed offshore and delivered here very recently. As the force increased its pace, he knew his time for action was running out. He certainly hadn't come this far to simply witness the outcome.
The Dorinah brought down their pikes, intent on skewering the Tai Mora at the walls.
Natanial gave the order to charge directly into their flank.
Dogs were generally faster than bears over distance, but the Dorinah dogs had been running at pace since they landed on the shore. The Tordinian bears had yet to make their paces today. When the call came, the bears leaped forward, roaring.
Natanial urged his bear to the front of the formation. He hefted his ax. His fighters flared out behind him, keeping loosely to the arrow formation. It had been some time since they'd run one of these, but his formation leaders were all intact, and eager. He saw the anticipation on their faces. Grist for the heavens that churned above, crunching them all into fragments.
The Dorinah saw them move, too late. Their soldiers were already locked into their charge. They could not pivot without chaos. One young woman broke formation and was promptly impaled by the soldier behind her.
Natanial raised his ax. His bear leapt. It swatted the legs out from under the nearest dog.
Natanial's mercenaries tore into the flank of the Dorinah. All was a twisted mass of bodies and yelping dogs and bears and flailing women in silver-plated armor. Natanial swung the ax using quick, narrow strokes. The Dorinah weren't ready for close-quarter fighting yet; most had only their pikes. At this range, he could dispatch them quickly.
He tore through gaps in armor, splitting open an arm at the elbow, a neck along the collarbone.
The Dorinah were tough fighters. He had no qualms about cutting their dogs out of from under them. The great animals bit and snapped and snarled. He hacked into the jaw of one and it collapsed, taking its rider with it.
In the confusion, the riders bunched up, so close that many who left their mounts were held aloft by the crush of the others.
Natanial almost lost his seat, but was saved by the same press. He knocked the woman behind him with the butt of his ax to propel himself upright.
A short blade caught him in the back. Nipped shallowly between his shoulder blades. He twisted, catching the woman's arm. The blow rattled her. She lost her seat and the dagger, and plunged between his bear and her own mount, crushed in the mud and blood below.
The sea of riders began to thin as it broke.
Natanial rode toward the walls of Daorian, chopping at fleeing riders as he went. His mercenaries were already on the ground looting bodies.
He didn't see what hit him. The blow came from behind, hard enough to knock him clean from his mount. Natanial dropped into the churned-up soil, dazed.
The breath left his body.
He gasped, struggling for purchase.
A rider bore down on him, pike out. He rolled; the pike slipped past his head, so near he felt the breath of it as it rushed by.
Natanial clawed his way up. The rider turned and bore down again. Natanial stumbled among the bodies, looking for a weapon or a distraction. He spied the tip of a pike and yanked it out of the tangled ruin of a dog and rider.
He pivoted, shoving the pike into the muck behind him just as the rider came at him. She tried to pull away, too late.
The dog yelped, impaling itself on the pike.
The rider shot free, thumping into the ground just ahead of Natanial.
Natanial brought up the pike just as another melee of riders came at him. These were a mix of dog and bear riders. He noted the shiny Tai Mora armor, chitinous like the armor of beetles. The Tai Mora were in pursuit, hounding two Dorinah ahead of them – and directly at Natanial.
He stumbled over the woman he'd unseated just as she came up with a knife. Instead of him, she lashed out at the nearest rider, one of her own, and cut the dog's legs. The dog went down, taking the rest of the animals and riders down behind it.
The tangle of bodies and beasts roiled. One dog, riderless, took off in the direction of the woods. Two of the bears, one with a rider caught in a stirrup and hanging off its left side, ran after it.
The women who remained tussled on the ground. Tai Mora armor at such close quarters hindered movement, and one woman went down immediately under a Dorinah blade.
Natanial slogged toward the remaining Tai Mora, who were now fending off three less well-armed but still formidable Dorinah women. Behind him, his mercenaries were finishing their looting and already withdrawing. He should, too. What was one Tai Mora? There were enough of them.
But he had come here, after all, to murder Dorinah.
Best get to it.
He came up behind one of the Dorinah and swung hard, hacking into her neck. She jerked like a puppet. As she fell the Tai Mora woman met his look, and he realized it was Monshara, the Tai Mora general. Tai Mora did not wear any insignia marking their rank, but he knew her face; she yelled at him often enough.
One of the Dorinah rounded on him. He punched her. She reeled back into her colleague. Monshara dispatched both of them with her weapon.
Monshara stood with him in the bloody wreck of the bodies. They were both breathing hard. Sweat and blood caked her face. She had a bruise darkening one cheek.
"Call the retreat," Monshara said.
He saw her forces moving away from the wall. He thought the line of Dorinah broken, but he was uncertain of her losses.
Natanial found a loose mount, a bear, and rode back to his company where they were still picking among the bodies and killing any who were slow to die. There was no exchange of prisoners in Tai Mora.
"We're falling back," Natanial said.
Otolyn straightened from a body, shaking a silver ring from a severed finger. "Already?"
"Back to camp."
Otolyn grabbed at the head of a woman cloven almost in two. She carved at its skin even as the other fighters mounted up and headed back toward camp.
"Laine's balls, Otolyn, let it be," Natanial said.
Otolyn carved away more skin, making raw, bloody patches, revealing all the meat beneath. Then she stuffed the bloody head into her saddlebag and mounted up.
"War trophy," she said, grinning. "Lot of power and glory to be found on the field."
She rode away, leaving Natanial alone among the dead. He hesitated to go after her, as the grinning skull put him in mind of other trophies, like the ones he had collected for King Saradyn. All that death, for nothing. As all this would be, in the end: little of it mattered, in the great scheme of things. But he wanted so desperately for something to matter. Anything.
Perched deep among the dead, he gazed across the dirt and turf churned into mud, thick with blood.
The silence after battle wasn't truly silence at all; the dying often went on screaming and wailing, clutching at their own split bellies and spilled organs.
A woman lying ten paces from him tried to stuff the glistening mass of her intestines back into the hole in her gut. The viscera, a gleaming reveal of the interior of the body, a secret only to be disclosed in the dark of night, was vaguely sexual, and his belly clenched, tightened by the arousal of battle, the twin powers of life and death.
Someone began to sing, a prayer for the dying, her own aria, and that moved him to action. He nudged the bear with his heel. It ceased snuffling at the mangled body underneath its paws and lumbered back toward the staging camp, pausing only to caress the dying with its forked tongue.
|
(Worldbreaker Saga 3) The Broken Heavens
|
Kameron Hurley
|
[
"fantasy",
"LGBT",
"science fiction fantasy"
] |
[] |
Chapter 6
|
The funeral guests were a wet, ragged group; only a few hundred of the thousand or so in their camp came topside for the funeral. Too many above ground at once was dangerous. Though the Tai Mora had swept this area before, they often sent out patrols of birds and rangers, and too many people drew both.
The rain continued all through Mohrai's funerary feast. Lilia sat with Namia, Salifa, Avosta, and a handful of other white-ribboned followers, pressed close to her mentor and fellow healer Emlee. Yisaoh and her family dined at the table opposite, and Lilia noticed that Yisaoh did seem to overly enjoy eating Mohrai's finger bones.
"She was skinny, that one," Emlee said, sucking the tiniest bit of marrow from a section of toe. Emlee hunched over the table, hands curled slightly with arthritis. Tirajistas treated the condition once a week, but could not stop the cause of the inflammation, just as they could not cure Lilia's asthma. Chronic conditions resisted Tira's embrace. The body rebelled.
"We're all skinny," Lilia said.
"Yisaoh going to speak?" Emlee asked, as Mohrai's closest cousin mounted the platform at the center of the gathering and began to recite from the Book of Oma.
"I don't think so," Lilia said. "The less Meyna notices her, the better, I suspect."
When he was finished, Mohrai's cousin called on Lilia to speak.
Lilia rose carefully from her seat. Emlee assisted her, and Namia tagged along behind her. A few beribboned Dhai stood when she did, and there was a little hush as Lilia made her way to the dais.
Rain soaked into Lilia's coat and seeped into her shoes. She took her time getting up onto the dais, and waited two long breaths before she spoke.
"On this," Lilia said, "the anniversary of Faith Ahya's ascendance and the death day of our own Mohrai Hona Sorai, I remind you that we've faced impossible odds before, guided by our divine Kai, fueled by our faith in the vision that Faith Ahya and Hahko had for our people as a strong, united force against the evils of war, oppression, and slavery. It is that faith that unites us. And it is that faith that will sustain us, and ultimately save us, in this dark time. Catori Mohrai knew that. I know that."
Namia leaned her cheek into Lilia's good hand. Lilia had shaved Namia's matted hair some time ago; the hair had grown back dark and straight. Braids kept it from tangling again. Half the girl's jaw hung lopsided, as if from some old blow to the face that never healed properly. What had been done to the girl was written on the scars and poor healing of her bones.
What Namia must have endured often came to Lilia in her in dreams, only in her dreams it was not Namia it happened to, but Lilia. And then her dreams took her back and back, to the Seeker Sanctuary while one of the Seekers kicked and hit her with a large cane. Taigan's hands on her back. The rush of air around her as he pushed her from the cliff's edge. Down and down. When she woke, she would claw at her eyes, fearing they were gone, and find herself running her hands over the little pocked scars on her cheeks from the birds that had attacked her, thinking her dead.
Lilia smiled down at Namia. "They believe us broken," Lilia said. "But Namia here is not. I am not. You are not. We are not. Many of you have joined those sabotaging supply lines and food stores. Your efforts are appreciated. We may be but flies on their backsides, but enough flies can overpower even the greatest beast."
A ripple of beribboned heads raised their open hands high above their heads. Only a few at first; then a dozen, two dozen, more.
Lilia met Yisaoh's gaze; Yisaoh frowned up at her from the soggy feasting table, damp hair stuck to her cheeks. Yisaoh shook her head. Meyna sat across from Yisaoh, back turned from Lilia. She smiled as she conversed with one of her husbands, Hadaoh, arms wrapped around her eldest daughter, Mey-mey, almost five; and the child Ahkio had pronounced Li Kai, little Hasao, nearly two years old. Her other husband, Rhin, studied Lilia carefully, his long face turned down in a grim expression.
Lilia raised her hands. "Let us give thanks to Oma, for the life Mohrai has led, and the life each of us will be forging for ourselves in the days to come."
She led the group in a recitation from the Book of Oma, one of Ahkio's favorites, something he had bandied about Kuallina during their last days there.
It had the desired effect. Those who had not raised their hands joined her in the repetition of the words, the comforting embrace of the known. Even little Namia babbled beside her, humming the rhythm of the words, if not fully articulating them.
When it was over, Lilia limped back to her seat. Her hands trembled, but she fisted them tightly and firmed her mouth. A few of the refugees from the camps in Dorinah approached her, all beribboned, murmuring encouraging words.
She sat back with Emlee and Tasia. Tasia crawled into her lap as Meyna made her way up to the platform hand-in-hand with Hasao.
They ascended the hill together. Though still so young, it was clear Hasao was a relation to Ahkio; she had his deep eyes, the narrow chin, petite features and shiny, silky hair. Meyna must have been triumphant at that; she certainly pointed out the similarities often.
Meyna patted Hasao on the head, then reached into her own coat and took out a small hatchet.
A susurrus of concerned voices rippled through the crowd.
"This is my favorite tool," Meyna said. "Catori Mohrai and I argued often about it. She asked why I carried it, when we are a pacifist people. I told her it's useful for hacking out toxic plantlife. For cutting back the thorn fence. I've used it to enlarge our chambers, below ground. I've cut supple bows for little Hasao's small hands. Yes, it's a useful tool." Meyna lowered the hatchet and came to the front of the platform. Her wet tunic clung to her curvy form; her pregnancy was just beginning to show. "But Catori Mohrai, and some others among us, they see a hatchet as a weapon, not a tool. They intend to use our greatest strength in the worst possible way. Yes, this hatchet is useful for many things, but it will not take down a bonsa tree. It's not meant for that. It won't carve through stone. You will never lose an infused weapon to it. It serves one purpose, and to use it otherwise would be an attempt to make it something it is not.
"We are like this hatchet. Sharp. Versatile. Adaptable. But all that goes away when we apply ourselves to an endeavor we were not designed for.
"Who are the Dhai? We are enduring. Loving. Peaceful. Intelligent. We understand that we must exist in balance with this world, not seek to bend it to our will. We know that our greatest strength is each other. Unity is our strength."
Meyna paused, gaze sweeping the crowd. "This is why I am welcoming Mohrai's cousins and child into my family."
Lilia nearly choked on her lukewarm tea.
Meyna tipped her head toward Lilia, and smiled. Such a broad, knowing smile.
Lilia turned to see Yisaoh's reaction, but Yisaoh was nowhere to be found. Not even a breath of smoke indicated where she might have gone.
Meyna continued, "You have spoken to me about the dangers of the Woodland. We all understood there would be challenges. We also knew it was temporary. While some seek to break us, to throw us into disorder, to muddy our purpose as a people, I have not forgotten who we are. It has been my honor, and Catori Mohrai's honor, to have spent these last few months finalizing our preparations to take the Dhai to a new homeland."
Audible gasps. A few cheers. Cold fear traveled up Lilia's spine.
Emlee leaned in and whispered to Lilia, "Did you know of this?"
"No," Lilia said.
Meyna's infuriating smirk quirked at the corner of her mouth. "This is why I urge continued patience and perseverance," Meyna said. "This is a not a time for rash actions and revenge, but reflection on how far we have come, and how much further we will go, together, in rebuilding the people of Dhai on a safer shore."
The murmurs grew louder: questions about where they were going, and how, and when.
But Meyna hushed them. "Now is not the time. Let us celebrate Mohrai's life today. Trust that Catori Yisaoh and I are bringing you to safety, true safety, on another shore, as Faith Ahya and Hahko brought their people to Dhai. We are not a place, my kin, we are a people."
Lilia's mind reeled. Cheers went up.
"To the Dhai people!" someone shouted, and the crowd took it up.
"To the undefeated Dhai!"
Lilia pushed out of her seat, head spinning. Abandon Dhai? Now, when she was so close to taking her revenge? Had Yisaoh known about this? And where in this world could Meyna possibly take them that would be safe? Lilia did not want to leave Dhai; that had never been the plan.
She took up her walking stick, and stumbled away from the feasting, ignoring the attention she drew from the ground for her abrupt exit. Let them see she was displeased.
Namia followed. Salifa got up to join her, and a handful of other beribboned guests, but Lilia waved them away. The optics of Lilia walking out with several hundred others holding high their ribboned heads could have been construed as actively hostile. She was fine with rudeness, but naked hostility when she did not know the full extent of Meyna's plan would do her no favors.
She and Namia descended below ground to their settlement via a painful ladder that Lilia had argued against from the first day, because it meant the old and infirm, like her, suffered needlessly going up and down it when they could have used a ramp. But she was overruled, as the ladders were easier to remove than a ramp. Mohrai and Meyna had focused more on keeping out invaders, without a care for creating a prison for many of their own people.
Lilia's leg ached as she traversed the cavernous underground system of tunnels connecting the bladder traps that went on for nearly two square miles, tucked just beneath the surface of the woodland. Her chest began to tighten with the stress and exercise, and she took a long swig from her mahuan-laced water bulb, hoping to stave off a wheezing fit. Lilia had found the giant subterranean puzzle of mummified traps a few weeks into the exile of the Dhai who had survived the Tai Mora invasions. It had been her idea to reverse the fangs on the dead traps in all but a few heavily monitored entrances, which prevented others from coming down. Over time, they had dug through the shallow wells between the traps, linking them into rooms, corridors, several kitchens, and even a massive gathering space.
She entered the series of rooms she shared with Emlee, Tasia, and Namia, all lit with flame fly lanterns. The flame flies came to life as she approached, disturbed by the heat and movement, giving her enough light to maneuver through the small spaces.
Two jistas had watch over her rooms, and put thumb to forehead as she passed. Both wore white ribbons around their necks. They were twin sisters, Mihina and Harina, long-legged young women dressed in long burlap tunics that made them look like bristling bags of firewood.
"Is everything all right?" asked Mihina, the one with the stronger jaw and the tendency to cock her head every time she asked a question.
"I'm fine. The weather has moved into my chest." She gave a raspy cough for good measure.
Inside Lilia's room, she kept a massive old map on top of a bulbous growth that served as a table. Back against the far wall was a trunk, three paces long and two paces tall. The jistas – Salifa, Mihina and Harina – knew about the bones and silvery green symbol that rested within, but no one else. She had told Emlee it was private, and locked it, just in case. The last thing she wanted was Tasia to begin digging around in it. The box had been set up over a week ago, and in the last day began emitting a strange odor. The room smelled of honey and dead birds.
As she entered, a slight figure stood up from the shadows. Lilia started, so suddenly she gasped to catch her breath. "Caisa!" Lilia said. "I'm so sorry. I completely forgot."
"It's all right," Caisa said, pulling back the hood of her coat.
Lilia pressed her hand to her chest, wheezing. She did not want to take the mahuan in front of Caisa if she did not need to. "I'm sorry," Lilia said. "Please, yes, let's sit."
"Li?" Caisa said, and came to her side. "May I help you into a seat?"
Lilia shook her head, denying consent. "I wanted to have a look at the map." She coughed. Dug around for her mahuan mixture in her pocket. Only a few swallows left. She needed Emlee to prepare another batch. Lilia took a shallow swallow and motioned Caisa to the table.
The map was Salifa's work, a lovely rendition of Dhai all scratched out in violet ink on a great, pounded sheet of green paper. Lilia had marked each temple, including the sunken one, as well as known locations for the bulk of Kirana's forces: the harbor, the plateau outside Oma's Temple, Kuallina, and the pass where Liona had been. Red Xs dotting the foothills around Mount Ahya indicated where her small groups of rangers had successfully lured and abandoned Tai Mora scouting parties. The Catoris had liked that gambit because it involved no direct violence – they had lost just one of their own people in all that time, and him to a bone tree. It was the terrain that killed the Tai Mora, once the Dhai took them deep enough into the wood. Lilia had instructed her people not to touch one hair on those Tai Mora heads, even as screaming sentient trees popped off Tai Mora limbs and digested them.
Namia came up next to her. She made the sign for death, as if she could sense Lilia's thoughts.
"Not yet," Lilia said. She glanced at Caisa. "I'm sorry. We didn't expect a report this early."
"Is Catori Yisaoh coming?"
"I'm afraid she's indisposed. I'll relay the information to her."
"I came as quickly as I could," Caisa said. Caisa had been part of a refugee group from another temple. She was a lean parajista, freckled and high of forehead. A fringe hid much of the forehead, the glossy dark hair cut in a severe style that mirrored the grim look on Caisa's round face.
"What have they done now?" Lilia asked.
"The fifth temple has finally been raised," Caisa said.
"From the ocean? The whole thing?"
A nod. "It's just the… heart of it, though. It's like a temple with all the trappings of it taken off. Like a beached leviathan."
"What's inside?"
"They aren't able to penetrate it."
"They got into the other temples, though. Any movement there?"
Caisa shook her head. "The temples are still bleeding, where they forced their way through. They groan sometimes, rumble. They aren't happy about it."
"I wish they could do more than rumble. If they haven't gotten inside the fifth temple, then–"
"They've established where the jistas will be," Caisa said. She pulled a waxed cylinder from her coat. "May I?"
Lilia nodded.
Caisa unrolled a few pieces of parchment onto the table. Lilia wrinkled her nose at it. The Dhai did not make paper from the skins of animals or human beings, not like the Saiduan and Tai Mora. The barbarity of it still rankled Lilia.
"I have lists, here, of the jistas chosen for each temple," Caisa said, "for the niches. These are the four jistas of each time, plus a sort of… conduit: a central figure in each temple, that the others focus their power on."
Lilia read over the names, but only a few seemed familiar, like Suari, Kirana's closest jista. They were all Tai Mora. She pondered what they could do with this information. Assassinate one of them? A whole group of them? But surely Kirana would have others ready to take their places.
"Here is the realization," Caisa said. "You see this fifth temple? The arrangements of the jistas are different. This fifth temple, the central figure is thought to be a worldbreaker. That's the person who will wield the combined power of all five temples to close the ways between the worlds. And these other two… these are different, as well. Someone who can enter the temple, maybe a Kai? And another, just behind the Worldbreaker, that must step into this cocoon thing here. For what purpose, I don't know, but the fifth temple certainly requires more pieces."
"They still haven't fully translated the book?"
"No."
"That's something."
"We haven't either, though," Caisa said.
Lilia hesitated. "Caisa, has… has Catori Meyna or Catori Yisaoh spoken to you about our people leaving the country?"
"What? No!"
"Catori Meyna announced it today. I'm concerned that the Catoris are no longer especially interested in what the Tai Mora are doing unless it's directly impacting us here."
"But… it will impact us! If they can get the power of the satellites concentrated at this fifth temple, they could reach you, reach us! From anywhere. There's nowhere to go, when one force has that much power."
"Won't they just use it to close the ways between the worlds?"
"Everyone says that, but I know there's more to it. It's called a worldbreaker for a reason."
The box in the corner rattled. Lilia started. Caisa peered at it. "What's that?"
"Nothing," Lilia said.
"Perhaps you could talk to the Catoris," Caisa said. "I do think there's an opportunity here, before all the satellites enter the sky, to alter our position."
"I agree with you," Lilia said, "but it was difficult enough to get buy-in for an upcoming strike. And with Catori Mohrai dead… Catori Meyna is moving us in another direction."
Caisa cocked her head. "Li, when has anyone ever moved you in a direction you did not want to go in?"
"I'll speak to them," Lilia said, "after this offensive. We'll have a better idea then of how much the Tai Mora are shaken by our offense."
"I'll leave these here," Caisa said. "Oh, you should also know that I spotted tumbleterrors over the next rise. The funerary feast may be drawing them. I told one of your scouts who escorted me in, but I wanted to be sure you knew as well."
"Thank you, Caisa. Stay a bit in the guest quarters. Mihina!"
Mihina appeared quickly, as if she had been listening at the door. "Yes, Li?"
"Could you take Caisa to the guest quarters? Ensure she has something to eat and drink."
Mihina pressed thumb to forehead and gestured for Caisa to follow her.
As they left, Namia signed at Lilia, "Change? Plan?"
"No," Lilia said. "We don't know enough."
"Hurt," Namia signed.
"I know they hurt you," Lilia said. "They hurt me too. We'll get our revenge though, Namia. Very soon. Their encampment near Tira's Temple won't be protected during Tira's Festival, just as it was not last year. Whoever remains there for the festival, well. They will meet us."
"Soon," Namia signed.
"Yes, soon. Let's see if the feast is over." Lilia spared another look at the box, which remained still, then moved into the corridor.
She heard the patter of footsteps on the bare ground. Tasia barrelled toward her from around a bend in the tunnel, as if someone had lit a fire behind her. She beamed like a bear with a snaplilly. Lilia had never seen her look so ecstatic. Tasia bolted past Harina and hurled herself into Lilia's arms, nearly knocking her off her feet.
"What is it, love?" Lilia asked.
"The Kai has returned!" Tasia crowed.
Lilia had a moment of dissonance. "The… Kai? You mean the… Catoris? Meyna? Yisaoh?" Oma, Lilia thought, was Mohrai alive? With Oma in the sky and the world breaking apart, anything was possible.
"No, no!" Tasia pushed away and began hopping up and down, clapping her hands. "The Kai is here! The real Kai!"
A look of dread came over Harina's face. "No, no," she said, touching the white ribbon at her throat. "Tasia, you know Kai Ahkio is dead. Him, my cousins, nearly everyone at Oma's Temple–"
"He isn't!" Tasia insisted, and Emlee came around the bend in the tunnel and Lilia saw the truth in Emlee's face.
"Kai Ahkio is alive!" Tasia said. "We are saved now, Mother Lilia! Kai Ahkio has come to save us!"
"Emlee?" Lilia asked.
Emlee placed her hands on Tasia's head, to settle her so she didn't push Lilia over in her excitement. "There is indeed someone at the thorn fence," Emlee said, expression grave. "Someone who shares Kai Ahkio's face."
|
(Worldbreaker Saga 3) The Broken Heavens
|
Kameron Hurley
|
[
"fantasy",
"LGBT",
"science fiction fantasy"
] |
[] |
Chapter 7
|
After a skirmish with the Dorinah, Natanial generally spent the evening drinking with Otolyn and his fighters. But he was less eager to do so this time. The weary lack of progress the last two months had taken its toll on him.
He spent the late afternoon counting up the dead and ensuring their belongings things were wrapped to send back home. He visited those who had been wounded, and tended to the morale of the company. By the time he was done, it was dark, and he was thirsty and had a powerful desire to be left alone.
Natanial rode his dog into the little captive Dorinah village, Asaolina, that the Tai Mora had turned into their supply base. The tavern there was lit up like a festival square. Tai Mora crowded the street, laughing and drinking and playing games of chance. Many of the games he didn't recognize. While most Tai Mora had the tawny skin and slight features of Dhai, it had clearly not been a homogeneous country like that of the Dhai. The gathered soldiers spoke a dozen different languages, though all shared Tai Mora in common. The hair colors and textures, heights and body types and features, gave him the impression that the Tai Mora had conquered countries with a wide geographic scope on their own world. The more Tai Mora someone looked, the more likely they were to be someone in charge; that bit of petty blood rule was unchanged from places like Dorinah and Saiduan. Natanial had encountered it himself when he traveled from Aaldia to Tordin. Tordinians had always looked at him with unease and mistrust, a foreign man in a foreign land, no matter how exceptional his Tordinian or how many years he spent in their backward little country.
He found a seat at the bar in the raucous tavern, a smooth granite counter that put him in mind of better days. He ordered a beer from the barkeep, a Dorinah woman who looked like she would rather punch him than serve him. He could not blame her.
A Tai Mora group emerged from the back of the tavern, exiting from one of the private meeting rooms that had once been reserved for local magistrates and officials. Natanial recognized the Tai Mora generals, including Monshara. She was dressed down, no armor, just a long gray tunic and sturdy trousers. One of the few Tai Mora who retained a bit of plumpness in her face, she had the gray eyes and pale complexion of a Dorinah. Her broad nose and narrow jaw made it look like she was always staring down her nose at something that upset her. She had scrubbed away the filth and stink of the battlefield. Her hair was a mop of tangled black curls.
Natanial didn't acknowledge her, but she noticed him. She bid the other generals goodnight and came over to the bar, smelling of soap and leather. He stiffened, uncertain. Tai Mora had been known to praise with one hand and strangle with the other. The pay was good, yes, and he enjoyed being on the winning side, but the unpredictability of the Tai Mora was far worse than what he'd endured under King Saradyn back in Tordin.
"Put this man's drinks on my tab," Monshara said, in Dorinah, placing a hand on his shoulder. She was shorter and heavier than him by a good fifty pounds. Maybe she was getting all of her calories from beer. "You didn't have to step in today to cut off that force of Dorinah. I didn't order you."
He sipped his beer, studying her. Warm and flat, the beer made him grimace. He said, also in Dorinah, "You could dismiss the company for not obeying an order, if that's what you'd like."
"Certainly." Her breath smelled of beer, and her eyes were bright; he was uncertain how much she'd had to drink. "That's because there are very few smart soldiers. Smart soldiers become officers, in Tai Mora, and Aaldia, Tordin, certainly. Which begs the question… why are you just a boot-licking mercenary?"
"You have your own assassins," Natanial said. "They are better than I am. This was the next logical career path for me."
Monshara laughed. She climbed into the seat next to him and ordered herself a drink. "You speak very good Dorinah for a foreigner."
"I've spent a lot of time here."
"Working for Tordin?"
"Now and then."
"You knew King Saradyn?"
"In passing."
"Saradyn ever use jistas?"
"There aren't a good many in Tordin."
"Omajistas?"
"You recruiting?"
"Always." The barkeep brought her drink, and she took a long swallow. "You saw the mess out there. With an omajista we'd have won this campaign eight months ago."
"You do seem a bit… understaffed."
"We aren't a priority. The Empress has other projects. I've asked often for an omajista, but… well. She's preoccupied with her temples, and rooting out little Dhai spies. With an omajista you could open up a gate directly into Daorian."
"Surely you've tried that?"
"We did, a few months back, before you arrived. They had wards up. We think we've successfully removed the wards, but it means convincing my Empress that I won't waste an omajista this time around."
Natanial considered that. He took a long swallow from the beer. A few Tai Mora women began a rousing chorus of some bawdy song. They were not so different from Dorinah, some nights. "I wish you luck with that," Natanial said, "though I do enjoy taking your money until then."
Monshara laughed and thumped the table. "You Aaldians will outlast us all. You are Aaldian, aren't you? That's what your second says. You don't look it. Tordinian, certainly."
"I'm surprised the Tai Mora haven't turned their armies on Aaldia yet," Natanial said, moving the conversation away from his own parentage. He had no interest in commiserating with her about his past.
"No need," Monshara said. "There are no living temples there, like in Saiduan and Dhai, and there's no people on our side that mirror the Aaldians. You're unique to this world. Eliminating you would serve no purpose. The Empress is ever the pragmatist when it comes to genocide. Besides, the war for the world has been won. If she gives us a fucking omajista, I could be sitting on a fucking country estate right now. But she's gotten paranoid. She's walling herself in."
Natanial had spent much of his life fighting the Dorinah and the cruelties they had unleashed here and elsewhere in Tordin. Or perhaps he sensed that once this campaign was done, his usefulness to the Tai Mora would end. How to better position himself for the future? He chugged the rest of the beer and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. Was he trying to be useful, or was he just selfish, and lonely?
"I know where to find an omajista," Natanial said, the words spilling out before he had time to consider it further. "He could be… persuaded to assist you, I think."
Monshara raised a brow. "And what do you want in return, mercenary?"
"It's been a long time since anyone asked me that. Anyone with the ability to deliver something other than money."
"Other than money? What kind of mercenary are you?"
"I like to work for the winners," Natanial said. "I bring you an omajista, and you keep my crew in work. I want to be close, to be useful. I want a future in the world that's coming into being. That's all."
"I can't guarantee she won't stab you in the back. She's done it to all of us often enough. That's me speaking frankly after a lot of fucking beer."
"It's all right," Natanial said, "I'm used to working with intemperate tyrants." He asked for another beer to wash away the guilt roiling away in his gut.
He was already a little sorry. But not sorry enough.
|
(Worldbreaker Saga 3) The Broken Heavens
|
Kameron Hurley
|
[
"fantasy",
"LGBT",
"science fiction fantasy"
] |
[] |
Chapter 8
|
Anavha laid out the metal letters of type, carefully following the simple styling set out on the proof pages of the pamphlets he was printing. He found Aaldian to be an intuitive language, but even so he was not fluent in it after a year in the country. Some of that may have been that he lived so far from the cities. He didn't get a lot of practice with language; he knew how to write it and read it better than he could speak it. The pamphlets were purely educational, covering local Aaldian politics. He enjoyed reading them as much as making them.
The slanting light of the double helix of the suns poured through the afternoon clouds and illuminated his work area beneath the great open windows. Aaldia was further south than Dorinah, and a little warmer this time of year. He enjoyed cool weather; the summer here had been too hot for him.
"Finished, love?" said Nusi as they ducked through the pale wooden doorway.
Anavha paused in his work to watch them; they were tall and lean, with a great hooked nose and long sloping forehead. Nusi had wrapped their hair up in a brilliant purple scarf. They flashed a smile at him, more a showing of teeth, a grimace, than a smile, really, but he had come to understand that it had the same meaning, among Aaldians.
Nusi ran their hand over his shoulder as they passed and kissed the top of his head. Their touch still made him shiver pleasantly with the memory of how they spent their nights. He tried to focus on the letters, but his mind was off again, warm and yearning in the dark.
Anavha had come here expecting fear. Dorinah was not fond of outsiders, and he assumed Aaldians wouldn't be either. But he knew the language, more or less, and more importantly, he knew how to play the game of spheres.
His last game still hung in the air in the sitting room, a tangle of threaded spheres he had generated himself using Oma, after much practice. He had lost his last game by putting one sphere into another in the incorrect order. The math involved still sometimes puzzled him. But he was good enough to earn respect during the local tournaments.
Distracted by thoughts of the game, Anavha dropped two of the heavy metal character symbols – one for air, the other for smile – and bent to retrieve them. As he did, a motion in the window caught his attention. He straightened.
There was a man outside, watching him.
He caught his breath. The man was tall and angular, with a prominent nose, strong square jaw and powerful forearms. He was bronze-skinned, and had shaved his thick auburn-brown hair; Anavha missed that hair.
Anavha knew him immediately, but blinked several times in shock, because the man was not supposed to be here.
"Was hoping to buy a pamphlet," Natanial said, walking to the open window and leaning on the frame. He had an easy confidence about him, the confidence of a man who understood his body's strengths and knew exactly how to deploy them. "Heard you're out here preaching about the ills of Dorinah in these rags."
"How did you find me?" Anavha said.
"I admit, I thought you'd stay in the cities," Natanial said, "but I didn't count on you meeting someone like Nusi. I should have. I know their taste."
"You know Nusi?"
"You forget that I was trained as an assassin," Natanial said. "Finding people is something I excel at. Aaldia is also a fairly small country. There aren't many Aaldians who can speak Dorinah. Finding a moon-faced Dorinah boy out here was comparatively easy."
"I thought you agreed to leave me alone."
"I agreed to no such thing," Natanial said, but his eyelid twitched. "Anavha, I wanted to let it lie. I have for all this time. But we have… a cause that needs you."
"I can't imagine anything in Tordin–"
"I'm in Dorinah now," Natanial said, "working with the Tai Mora. They have nearly overcome the Empress of Dorinah in all but one city. Daorian is the last holdout."
"That doesn't have anything to do with me."
"We need an omajista to get us inside the walls. The Tai Mora can't spare one. There's some scheme in the temples that requires a good many of them. When they asked if I knew an omajista, well. There's only you, Anavha."
"I know people in Daorian," Anavha said. "Good people. Daolyn, and Zezili's sisters, her mother–"
"Fine upstanding people who cull and bind and abuse half their people," Natanial said, "and turn Dhai into slaves."
"The Tai Mora have slaves," Anavha said. "They aren't any better."
"They are stronger," Natanial said. "They are going to win this. And we can be on the side of the winners."
"I guess I'm not surprised that you're so… mercenary," Anavha said.
"I'm practical," Natanial said. "It's how people like us survive."
"Us? We're not alike."
"We're more alike than you know," Natanial said. "The Empress of Dorinah is a creature, not fit for this world. If you had seen what I did… She has monsters inside those walls, monsters from some other world–"
"The Tai Mora are–"
"Not like this," Natanial said.
Anavha firmed his mouth. He wasn't seeing the difference, but Natanial had encountered the Empress of Dorinah's people, and he hadn't. Still, he didn't like it when people treated him like a child.
"I'm staying out of the war," Anavha said.
"You can come right back," Natanial said. "Oma is risen. You can pop back here any time you want by opening a gate – a wink, the Tai Mora call it. I am asking you for a single favor."
"Why do I owe you a favor?"
Natanial raised his brows.
"You were the one who told me that Zezili used me," Anavha said, "that she cut me off from other people so she'd be all I knew. So I would depend on her. But you did the same thing. You kept me prisoner, too. You aren't better."
"I…" Natanial began, and then seemed to think better of it. "We need an omajista. It's the only power they can't counter. They have no defense against you."
"You should go," Anavha said. "I don't want you here."
"Anavha?" Nusi came in from the kitchen, wiping their hands on their apron. "Who are you – oh."
Nusi's gaze met Natanial's, and Anavha saw a look pass between them that he knew only too well. Everyone loved Natanial, foolish though that may be. Had they been lovers?
"Natanial Thorne," Nusi said, and the breathless tone made Anavha's heart ache.
"It's lovely to see you, Nusi," Natanial said. "I admit, though, that I'm here for Anavha. If he will indulge me."
"He enjoys indulging others far too much."
"I know that," Natanial said.
"I'm right here!" Anavha said. "I can speak for myself."
"Can you now?" Natanial smirked. "That is indeed a new development."
"Come inside," Nusi urged. "I have never been known to turn away a weary traveler."
Anavha said, "He should go."
"Nonsense," Nusi insisted. "It's polite. I'll have one of the siblings make up a meal."
They went around to the door and opened it for Natanial. Anavha stood just behind Nusi, as if to shield himself from Natanial's presence. But it was a futile effort. As the door opened, Anavha had the same reaction to Natanial as he always had. Anavha wanted to curl up in his arms and ask for comfort and safety. It made him hate himself because it was a part of him he knew he could never release. He had a sudden, terrible urge to cut himself, an urge he had not had in months. Natanial was an uncontrollable force, and Anavha needed something he could control.
Nusi invited Natanial into the kitchen. Most of Nusi's siblings – the others living with them on the sprawling farm – were out working, but they called in their sibling Giska to help with a meal, and sent Anavha out to the cellar for some yams. He came back to the kitchen to find Nusi sitting at the big battered wood table, laughing uproariously with Natanial. Anavha stopped in the doorway, torn. Was it jealousy he felt? Or something worse?
He stepped beside Giska to help with the meal. Natanial suggested a card game with Nusi, but they demurred and asked instead to get an update on the Tai Mora assault in Dorinah.
"They will come here next, certainly," Nusi said. "Is that what they tell you?"
"They insist Aaldia is inconsequential," Natanial said. "If they want to expand, they will expand north into Saiduan. If they do work with Aaldia, it will be in making them a vassal state, but that's far down the line. They are suffering with their crops this year. They continue to need Aaldia's help to feed themselves. Aaldia has extensive rice and wheat fields. They need that. It's all very well and good to fight a war, but they are losing the peace, and they know it."
Anavha listened closely, but their conversation soon turned to old business. They talked of Nusi's childhood here, and one long glorious summer where Nusi sailed around the world after having their first child. Which brought the conversation back to why the Tai Mora hadn't chosen some other continent besides this one.
"They couldn't have settled in Hrollief?" Nusi said. "Or some eastern country? There are enough wild things there that they could have had the run of the place."
"There's something here they wanted," Natanial said, "something in those Dhai and Saiduan temples. I don't pretend to know what it is. But I know when to hedge my bets. For now, our paths align. I want the Dorinah gone. I want the Tai Mora to see my value. That's the only way to continue on."
"You hate the Dorinah so much," Nusi said, "that you would ask this of Anavha?"
"I hate tyranny of all sorts," Natanial insisted. "I honestly believed in what Saradyn was doing in Tordin, even if I did not approve of his methods. But the Dorinah… well."
Nusi put their long, strong fingers over his, but he pulled his hand away, and smiled thinly. "It was so long ago," Nusi said.
"They continue to do terrible things." He looked at Anavha. Anavha felt heat move up his face, and quickly turned his attention back to cutting up the yams. Had the Dorinah once done something terrible to Natanial?
When the food was finished, they sat at the table together: Nusi and Giska; Natanial and Anavha; and six of the eight siblings, all called in for supper. Natanial laughed and flirted with all of them, and Anavha found himself envious of Natanial's great confidence.
When the meal was done, Natanial helped clean up, and they all moved outside to enjoy the cool evening. Most of the siblings retired to their quarters, and Anavha went to bed as well, before Natanial could ask him more questions, leaving Natanial to argue his case with Nusi and Giska.
Anavha could just hear the murmur of their voices through the open window.
"He belongs to neither of us," Nusi said, voice rising. "When he came here, he was broken. In many ways, he still is. Dorinah twists all their people into one type of broken child or another."
Natanial answered; Anavha knew the tone of his voice, but he spoke too softly, and the tenor of the conversation dimmed.
Nusi came to bed several hours later. Anavha was still awake, staring at the ceiling. As Nusi undressed, they said, "I understand why he frightens you."
"He doesn't frighten you?"
"On the contrary," Nusi said, lifting the covers and pressing their warm, naked body to his. "I always have suspicions about Natanial's motives. You did not seem keen to join him. He talks of murdering your own people."
"I'm not, and yet…"
"Yes, Natanial has that effect on people," Nusi said, stroking his hair, and their voice was as warm as their body. He pressed closer to them. "If you leave us here, you forget all this peace."
"Just because Aaldia is at peace doesn't mean I am," he said. "Maybe I can learn things from them, and bring what I've learned back here."
"If they let you leave, after Daorian is fallen."
"I'm afraid," he said.
"Stay here, love," Nusi said, and they brushed his hair with their long fingers. The high window was open, though it was cool, and he caught the scent of the fields, the loamy scent of manure and straw; he heard the lone cry of some plains cat, celebrating a meal. "You want me to stay?" he asked.
"What I want is unimportant. As is what Natanial wants. You came here to discover what you want. You have power, he is right. But that doesn't mean you're obligated to use it. You have no responsibility to anyone but yourself, and your community. And we are your community, now."
"It seems a shame not to use it," he said. "Oma won't be in the sky forever, will it? They say it will be ten, maybe twenty years. Then I won't be anyone at all anymore. I liked that, when I wasn't anyone special. Just someone… loved."
"Owned," Nusi said softly.
"Owned," he murmured. "I know it's wrong, I know you and Natanial don't like it, but I miss it. I miss other people telling me what to do. I hate having choices, Nusi. Just tell me to stay."
"You know I cannot."
"Then tell me to go."
Nusi laughed. "You miss the point of this exercise."
"I can't decide."
"Then sleep, love. Answers often come in sleep."
"I'm so afraid of the world," he said. "It's collapsing all around us. I want to hide."
"I know. We all do. But…" Nusi sighed. "The gods are not kind. They break the world when they do this dance. We've all known this day was coming. Now we must endure it."
"I don't know if I can… Should I just keep sitting here?"
"You keep trying to get me to make your decision."
"Sorry."
"I'm going to sleep now, Anavha. We'll talk about this over breakfast."
Nusi closed their eyes. Anavha lay watching the shadows move across their face, dimly illuminated by the outside perimeter lights. All this peace, all this quiet.
He lay next to Nusi for a long time, until Nusi's breath came regularly and they shifted away from him in the dark. Then he got up, quietly, and crept outside into the cool air.
Anavha sat on a large chair on the porch, watching the night flies sparkling across the fields. He pinched the inside of his arm, bringing pain, and with it, a sharper sense of the world, an awareness of being alive. Again, he had the urge to take a blade in his hand and cut away his worry and uncertainty, but instead he breathed deeply and closed his eyes. He had longed for control over his life. It was what led him to the cutting in the first place. And he did have control over his life now. Nusi did not bind him. He had his own small income from working on the journal. Natanial had made no show of force, and given no indication that he would haul Anavha away if he did not go freely. He did not think Natanial would kidnap him again, not now that he was free of Saradyn and the dream of Tordin.
Which left him here, in his own skin, alone, to make his own decisions. It was not as exhilarating as he'd always hoped. It was far more terrifying. If he chose wrong, he had only himself to blame for it.
A sharp flash lit up the sky, breaking the stillness. He squinted, but the lightning or tear had already vanished. Out here, he could almost pretend the world was normal. Almost.
He went back inside and slept, fitfully, until the first gray tendrils of dawn woke him. Oma, Tira and Sina winked in the sky, static though the suns were not, their soft light blending to turn the sky a deeper shade of lavender.
Anavha got up before Nusi and made tea. He pulled on a short coat and went outside to see how the sheep had spent the night. He enjoyed living on a farm, enjoyed walking outside to see a long expanse of gold fields in every direction. Their nearest neighbors lived over the next hill, a two hour walk distant.
He went out to the sheep pen to let them loose to graze. The dogs outside the kennel raised their heads as he passed. He had feared them when he first came here, but they recognized each other as participants with the same goal: to protect the livestock.
Anavha opened the paddock and counted the sheep as they came out onto the meadow to feed. He stood up on the rail to get a better look, and something in the distance, on the other side of the large run, caught his eye.
He clambered down and made his way along the brush fence, running his hand along the exterior. He loved the feel of the fence. He had helped Giska and Nusi pull young saplings from the woods just south of here and wend them through the broken patch of fence to mend it.
An object in the distance that appeared to be a pile of rags and brush began to resolve itself into the form of a human being. Anavha came up short just fifty paces distant, staring long at the figure to see if it moved.
When it didn't, he crept closer.
The body was strangely serene. Only the absolute stillness and awkward twist to the torso and left leg made it seem unnatural. There were no footprints, no broken grasses leading to or from the body. Only the bent stems on which it rested.
Anavha gazed upward. The sky rippled ominously. He took a step away from the body, fearful more might tumble from this sky. This was not the first one he had seen. Nusi had discovered three in their fields over the last few months. The Tai Mora weren't the only people fleeing to this world anymore. To his mind, there was enough room for everyone, but was that really true?
He stood among the grass as flies circled the body. The clothing was foreign, the hairstyle strange. This was an alien person, a worldly invader. But he found he could summon up no hatred for them. If his world was dying, he would throw himself into the tears between his world and another, too.
The morning was cool, and he shivered, though from the cold or the body, he did not know. He gazed back at the house. From this distance, the old Aaldian house was like a ship on a great green plain. The Aaldians had such a love for the sea that it should not have surprised him that they built their houses with riggings on which plants could twine their way from the sod gardens that insulated the roofs. The house itself was half-buried in the ground, which protected it from windstorms and the great tornadic clouds that prowled the plains. Carved totems, like those on the prows of ships, bookended the house.
As the double helix of the suns rose over the house, Natanial stepped out onto the stone porch. It reminded Anavha of the house in Tordin, when Anavha had opened the gate to Aaldia and turned back to see Natanial there, letting him choose his path. Maybe Natanial had not given him a choice at all. Anavha had thought journeying from Tordin would mean escaping the madness, but as long as the world was mad, it would intrude upon his life. Anavha had been fighting himself for so long that he didn't know what it would be like to fight other people. Maybe Natanial was right, and Anavha would only have to open a few gates, help mend the world in a small way, and then he could come home.
Natanial walked across the porch and followed the fence until he stood at Anavha's side.
"You're seeing more of them," Natanial said, nodding at the body.
"I don't want to destroy Dorinah," Anavha said. "It was, is, where my family lives. But this… this is what they are trying to stop, aren't they? The Tai Mora? They can protect us from this?"
"There are whole foreign armies of them in Dorinah," Natanial said, "pushing through the soft spaces between the worlds. It's one reason they want Daorian. It's a secure hold, with a good port. The Tai Mora can hold out against these other worlds far longer, in Daorian."
"They'll stop this, then?" Anavha said. "Nusi and Giska, here… we can save this place?"
"It's possible," Natanial said. "I want to keep you safe, Anavha. I want to keep everyone I care about safe, but to do that we need to align ourselves with the Tai Mora. The closer we are to them, the less likely we are to fall by their hand. You understand? It's why I stayed close to Saradyn, because there was no one in Tordin more powerful than him. And it's why I'm with the Tai Mora now."
"You can't really save me if something goes wrong, though."
"I can try."
The body remained inert. Flies crawled at the edges of the eyes. Anavha thought they would have burst, but the eyes were half-open, dull, with just a hint of wetness at the corners.
"Do you feel responsible for my decision?" Anavha asked.
"I always feel responsible," Natanial said.
"If I go with you, I could come back here at any moment. I won't make any promises, or accept any binding."
"I'm all right with that," Natanial said. "Come, let's tell them what you've decided."
Nusi waited for them on the porch, wiping their hands on an old dishrag, expression inscrutable.
"So you are going?" Nusi said.
"I will only be gone a little while," Anavha said. "I'm going to stop all the people falling from the sky. He says I can help."
Nusi opened their arms and embraced him. Anavha cried. He wanted to take it back, then, as he inhaled the scent of them. But he knew Nusi would disapprove if he made a promise and broke it. So he just cried, and then went to his room to pack his things.
When he returned to the porch, Nusi and Natanial were gazing at the sky. Great thunderheads roiled across the lavender expanse. Jagged lightning radiated from the largest of them. And there, to the north, just before the mountain range, a ragged line had opened, a great wound on the purple horizon through which a yellow fog emanated.
Nusi pulled Anavha close and kissed him. He lingered as long as he could, and then he felt a few drops of rain carried by the wind, and he was moving away, following after Natanial.
"Let's see if you're any better with opening those gates now," Natanial said, and gestured to a broad area of meadow well clear of the house.
Anavha held up his hands, because he found that it was easier to focus that way, and called on the power of Oma. He felt the breath of the satellite beneath his skin instantly, and his body was soon suffused in red tendrils of mist. He trembled a little with the pleasure and fear of it.
"Where are we going?" Anavha said. "Which part of Daorian? It needs to be somewhere I've been, somewhere I've seen."
"There's a village just outside," Natanial said, "Asaolina. You know it?"
"Yes."
"Bring us out on the hill overlooking it, there in the south. Less likely to be people there."
Anavha closed his eyes. He remembered Asaolina, because it was where Zezili liked to stop and rest if they were coming into Daorian too late at night. She would tell him it was too dangerous to bring a man into town after dark. They stayed at an inn there, the Copper Maidenhead, and he remembered the way the sheets smelled of lavender and old socks, and the light was always orange, because the flame flies in all the lanterns were dying. The memory overcame him, and for a moment he was back in that tavern, and Zezili had her hands around his throat as she straddled him. They were both covered in sweat, and his fear and desire mixed in that old, heady way it had every time she touched him.
Asaolina.
Anavha breathed in, pulling the power of Oma into his body and neatly knitting and binding it into the shape he needed. He released his breath, and a great spiraling eye opened in the air in front of him. As he exhaled, it continued to open, further and further, until Anavha could see the familiar tiled roofs of Asaolina on the other side.
Natanial whistled softly. "You've gotten much better," he said. His gaze turned up, to the boiling sky. "We best hurry."
Natanial stepped quickly through the gate, and Anavha followed.
Natanial saw Anavha stumble as he came out of the gate and onto a low hill outside Asaolina. Natanial caught him by the arm and hauled him up. Natanial turned to see what had tripped Anavha. As he did, light flashed across his vision. A massive black tear opened above the fields, not more than a few hundred paces away.
And an army fell out of the sky.
The gate closed.
Natanial shivered. This vision of the army lingered; hundreds, no, thousands, descending onto the Aaldian farm like black insects. Whose army? What world? What nation? He had no idea. Everything was coming together. Everything was falling apart.
"Is everything all right?" Anavha asked, and though the gate was closed and Anavha could not see what lay behind them, Natanial kept hold of his arm and propelled him forward, so he could not look back.
"It's fine," Natanial said. "Everything is going to be just fine."
|
(Worldbreaker Saga 3) The Broken Heavens
|
Kameron Hurley
|
[
"fantasy",
"LGBT",
"science fiction fantasy"
] |
[] |
Chapter 9
|
Luna had long practice with silence.
The Saiduan had shaped much of the childhood Luna remembered. It was a childhood where others spoke, and Luna obeyed. That childhood had taught Luna about the quiet resistance of hir own silence.
Once Luna had decided not to speak about the book ze had toted across the ocean from Saiduan, it had become easier to give up speaking all together. Luna knew what the Empress had not yet intuited: that the temples could do far more than simply seal away the other worlds from crossing over. They could be used to remake the world. To shatter continents. Sink whole cities. Luna kept hir silence, because it was the only way ze could think to save the world.
Instead, Luna spun stories in hir head, ruminated over deaths, cursed Roh, cursed hir parents, wept over what was lost, soaked in hir anger at all those who had owned hir over these many years.
Luna pressed hir face to the cell floor, half-dozing. Hunger came and went. Starvation was at once like freeing one from the body and reminding one of just how vulnerable the flesh was, how transient. Luna had once lasted thirty-seven days without food. It had been among the best thirty-seven days of hir life, because Luna had been fully and completely in control of hir body for the first time.
They would try to feed Luna again soon. Ze heard them bickering about it.
The voices subsided. Footsteps sounded outside the door, gritty leather soles on stone. Dhai didn't wear leather shoes. That was how Luna could distinguish the Dhai from Tai Mora.
Creak of the cell door. A spill of light. The guards dragged Luna to the table at the center of the cellblock. One of the guards hefted hir onto the bench. Luna was too tired to struggle. Luna expected to see food: rice, eating sticks, maybe a bowl of broth and a spoon. Instead, they stripped Luna down and took hir up two flights of stairs to a big empty bathing room and tossed hir into a massive pool.
The water was so cold, it shocked Luna breathless. For a moment ze was back under the icy surface of a Saiduan river, choking on death. Luna's limbs felt wooden. Ze could not swim. With some chagrin, Luna realized the water was shallow enough to stand in.
One of the guards called from the edge, "Get decent. Scrub up."
When Luna refused, they came in and scrubbed Luna roughly then hauled hir out. Luna did little to help them with their task, even as they pulled a clean tunic over hir head and dragged hir up the never-ending staircase. At the very top, in a chamber dominated by a massive circular table, the Empress of the Tai Mora waited, grim as ever.
On either side of the Empress, two jistas in long robes waited, hands folded.
"Hello again, Luna," Kirana said. Luna had learned to hate her narrow face, the thin lips, the cold black eyes. "Please, do you want to sit? Eat?"
Luna just stared at her.
"I understand," Kirana said. "I have been unfair, wrapped up in my own concerns. People I trust have suggested that you may not appreciate why we have done as we have, and why it's in your best interests to assist us. I know it seems cruel, but it was very necessary. I could tell you, yes, or… I could show you what's becoming of all these worlds that others are abandoning."
She gestured to one of the jistas next to her. "Suari?"
The man raised his hand. The air trembled. Luna felt the pressure in hir ears and pressed hir hands to hir ears.
Something in the air broke.
Luna recoiled. The world split in two. A shimmering hole opened in the air just ahead of hir, very nearly touching the floor. Luna feared that anything going over the threshold that got caught on the lip between the worlds would blink out of existence.
The guard at hir left took hir arm roughly and pushed hir through ahead of him. Luna shrieked as ze went over the lip of the hole in the world – to somewhere else.
On the other side, it was very dim. Luna stumbled into a piece of furniture. The soldier came after hir, one long leg and the arm that gripped hir pressing through the gate and then–
The hole in the world snapped shut.
Luna's ears popped. The fingers wrapped around hir arm loosened. The arm, a chunk of the soldier's left breast, and most of his left leg slopped to the floor, spraying blood.
Luna felt dizzy. Darkness kissed the edges of hir vision.
"Who's there?" A voice in the hallway. A key in the door. Where was this? Another cell?
The smell of the blood tasted coppery. Luna tried to go around the furniture, but hir eyes hadn't yet adjusted. Luna slipped in blood. Fell hard.
Darkness. A moment of consciousness, gazing at blood on hir own hands. Whose blood? Luna had forgotten. Another hand on hir arm. Alive?
Then dark again, a stutter of lost time, and a voice.
"My name is Yisaoh. What are you called?"
Luna peered behind the silhouette of the woman who spoke, and found hirself gazing out dirty windows. Beyond the streaked glass, the light was the color of weak tea. The air smelled of burning trash and tar; the smell lingered at the back of hir throat, so thick ze could taste it.
"I'm sorry for that… welcome," the woman said again. She turned slightly, no longer in silhouette. She was a tall, broad-shouldered woman with a bent nose and generous mouth. Her head appeared too large for her body, as if she carried far less weight than her frame demanded.
When Luna said nothing, the woman, Yisaoh, continued, "It's all right. Talking uses more breath. Would you like to see why? I expect that's what Kirana wants you to see. She told me you were coming. Something must have gone wrong with the wink. It does happen. I mourn the guard. I knew him. We have seen so much death together, and so much hope. But I am heartened that nothing happened to you."
Luna did wonder at the source of the smell. And the hole in the world.
"How is your head?" Yisaoh offered a hot cup of foul-smelling tea. "This may help."
Luna took it. Gagged a little. Hir stomach protested. It had been too long since ze ate or drank anything.
Yisaoh reached for her shoulder, then stopped. "I apologize. You are Dhai. You don't like to be touched, is that right?"
Luna firmed hir mouth. Luna had been born in Dhai, but the culture ze knew was Saiduan. The Saiduan did what they wished to those who were weaker. They were much like the Tai Mora in that way.
"Until Oma begins to respond to the jistas again, we are stuck together," Yisaoh continued. "There's fresh bread downstairs. And it smells better than here."
Yisaoh straightened. Her hands were bony, the veins prominent. The cuffs of her long violet robe shifted and covered them. She went to the door, waited for Luna.
Luna considered Yisaoh's words. The smell of fresh bread. The tea in hir stomach. Ze had seen no soldiers here, just this woman. Was Yisaoh meant to be a jailer? Or was she a prisoner like Luna?
Ze rose from the bed. Drank a little more of the tea. Ze stumbled, and Yisaoh bent to catch hir. Her arm looped around Luna's waist, a temporary bulwark against Luna's own weak body. It felt oddly comforting, after so long in the dark among strangers who hated hir. Maybe this one hated hir too, but in this new air, this new space, Luna could pretend.
Yisaoh escorted Luna through shattered corridors. Crumbled bricks were lashed with mortar and knotted tendrils of plant matter too uniform to be natural. Luna recognized the work of tirajistas. Luna understood that they were… somewhere else. Perhaps on hir world, but most likely not. The air itself felt alien. The way the ground pulled down at hir, seeming somehow firmer. The stones beneath them had melted in places. As they began up a set of broad steps, the hold rumbled, groaning as if alive and in terrible pain. Luna froze on the stairs.
"It passes." Yisaoh gestured for hir to continue. "The quakes usually aren't severe enough to threaten the integrity of the hold. Our jistas have shored it up."
At the top of the stairs was a door. Yisaoh pulled a scarf from a hook, and a pair of goggles that buckled behind the head. She handed another set to Luna. Ze struggled to get it all on.
"You should really eat before we go outside." Yisaoh pulled a bit of hard candy from her pocket. Luna had not seen candy since ze was a child.
Luna's fingers shook as ze took it. The burst of flavor on hir tongue made hir shiver. So sweet! It suffused hir body like some vital elixir.
Yisaoh opened the door.
A blast of black, tarry particles. The stench of burning hair, and something far more foul that Luna could not name. Ze stumbled after Yisaoh, fingers pressed to the scarf around hir face for fear it would blow away in the hot, dry wind.
As they trod across the roof, they left deep footprints in the ash. Luna's curiosity nearly got the better of hir. Luna opened hir mouth to ask what had happened here, but ze had not spoken in so long that no sound came out. Luna coughed.
"Don't breathe too deeply," Yisaoh said. "Here. You can see it just through the cover." She pointed across the roof of the building. Flat roof, Luna noted. Not a place that was used to getting snow, not like Saiduan. A gory orange-black fire blazed in the sky, like a watery eye trailing tears of wispy smoke.
"It's been poisoning this world for years," Yisaoh said. "The one Kirana and I are from is already dead, did you know that? This is another, adjacent to it, very similar. It had a great army as well, one that failed. We had to retreat here to the middle of the world, along the equator. You know what that is? The midpoint of a world. It's the only place still warm enough, here. With the cleanest air. You see? We had few choices."
Luna searched for the rest of the satellites. Low along the horizon, the faint red pulse of Oma shuddered like a tremulous heart. Luna took in the breadth of the roof. Behind hir, squat towers rose into cloudy brown haze. The windows higher up lay open; what was left of the shutters wept from crumbling frames.
Ze coughed, and wheezed, "There is always another choice." Hir voice sounded foreign to hir, after spending so long silent. Always another choice, that's what Maralah would have said, when Luna tried to explain why this or that task had not been completed. People with power always believed there were choices for others, but no other options for themselves except the path of least resistance.
"I assure you we explored many options."
Luna gazed at the edge of the rooftop. They were only two stories up. Hir body tensed. It was not a terribly long drop. Could Luna make it? Get away?
Ze was moving before ze realized it. Legs stumbling across the dusty rooftop, toward the edge.
"Wait!" Yisaoh, incredulous.
Luna leaped, hurling hirself into the great black abyss that embraced hir.
The smack of a forgiving surface.
A deep plunge.
Luna bobbed in the water of a shallow moat. Pulled acrid air into hir lungs. Coughed fitfully. Luna splashed toward a dark shape ze took to be the shoreline of the sludgy moat, only a few paces distant. As ze crawled onto land, the air cleared for a brief moment. Ze had every intention of running, of getting as far and fast as hir legs would carry hir, but exhaustion overcame hir again. Luna had not eaten, or moved so vigorously, in some time.
Hir hands sank into the deep mud. Knocked against what Luna thought was stone, but no, this was more brittle. Porous. Luna smeared away the mud on the shore and found half a human skeleton there.
Luna recoiled. Lifted hir gaze. Let hirself sink back in the mud.
Across the whole of the broad valley, just visible below the dirty air, lay piles of bones. Luna's mind could not make sense of it. The wind was warm, but Luna shivered, tucking hir hands under hir arms. Hir damp hair clung to hir face.
Luna gaped at the valley of bones: chitinous rotting helmets, tattered military banners, rusting weapons, the tangled remains of abandoned gear kits, packs and pouches; the sorts of things no living person would leave behind. What had killed them so quickly that they could not flee?
Ze had never been in a place to make life and death decisions for anyone but hirself, though hir Saiduan masters had certainly sent hundreds of thousands to death at a word. Here was a whole army, thousands of people all at once… Who had decided if they lived or died?
Luna heard raised voices. The bark of a dog.
Yisaoh broke through the misty fog, riding a great pale dog, its body ravaged by mange. The expression on her face was pained. She slid off the dog. A girl came with her, tagging behind, and finally, here, a soldier wearing chitinous armor astride a dog as well, her face as sunken as Yisaoh's.
"That was foolish," Yisaoh said. "How far did you think you could go, in your condition? Are you hurt?"
Luna shook hir head. Gazed again to the valley of bones. Yisaoh followed hir look.
"This world's army," Yisaoh said. "The one that failed to make it to yours in time. I know what we did on your world is reprehensible. We are not good people. But what would you have done, in the face of this much death?"
"You should have died," Luna rasped.
Yisaoh brought the girl next to her closer. A simple girl who shared Yisaoh's high forehead and dark hair. "This is my daughter Tasia. She has a double in your world. As do I. We will die here. Does that make you feel better?"
Luna shook hir head.
"Kirana says you can help. I don't know how. But if you can, please… even if you can't save me, you can't save my daughter… closing those seams between the worlds will save the people who did make it. You can decide now. It's up to you. Not Kirana, or me. You."
"That's unfair."
"Nothing about the world is fair."
A gentle trembling rocked the ground beneath them. Yisaoh pulled her daughter to her. "You go back inside with Sorida."
"Mam–"
"Go."
Sorida, the soldier, also protested. Yisaoh was firm. They rode together back to the hold.
Yisaoh bent to help Luna up. Luna accepted her hand.
"There are no monsters," Yisaoh said. "Only choices."
"What just happened?" Kirana yelled.
Suari raised his hands. Scowled. The other jistas milled about like startled chickens.
"I… lost Oma. Give it a moment. It can be fickle, sometimes. One can lose a thread of power on occasion and–"
"Open it back up!" Kirana said. "That little shit is in there with my wife."
"A moment, I–" Suari furrowed his brows.
The air shuddered.
A great moaning roar came from overhead.
"The fuck…" Kirana muttered. She rushed to the broad windows at the back of the room. The remaining guard and the jistas followed.
The satellites still hung in the sky: fiery green Tira to the northeast; purple Sina higher up and further west, and red Oma, a knuckle of dark ochre smearing the sky between them, its orbit taking it nearly as high as the double suns at midday.
But now a great rent had opened in the sky beside Oma, smearing the rush of its red light, sending shadows across the ground below. The gory black wedge of some mountainous form pushed through the rent between the worlds, blotting out the suns. It knifed toward the ground, like an upside-down peak trying to embed itself into the woodlands.
"What in Sina's maw is that?" Kirana said.
A great cracking made the air rumble. The sky closed. The massive form that had cut through the passage lost its mooring and fell.
The boom came first.
"Shit," Kirana said. She braced herself against the wall.
A rippling quake sent the whole temple shaking. She nearly lost her feet. Dust filled the air, making her choke and cough.
When the shaking stopped, Kirana again gazed out at the sky. Oma winked madly above them. Below, the heaving monolith that had fallen from the sky lay silent and still as the dust and debris it had kicked up began to settle. Its jagged black form towered above the nearby treetops. It was as if Dhai had grown a mountain at the center of the country.
"Kuallina is there," Kirana said. Two of her legions, three of her commanders, were stationed at Kuallina. "Do you have Oma yet?" she said to Suari.
He shook his head; bits of glass tinkled. "Whatever that was disrupted it."
"Then we do this blind," she said. Pointed at the guard. "I need our bird master and the runners. Go."
He went, crunching across the glass. The dappled light had transformed the room, as if she stood in some other place. Kirana shook her head. Staying sane as the world broke apart took stubborn patience.
"Suari, you're coming with me. I want that little ataisa back if we have to rip apart the sky again to do it."
|
(Worldbreaker Saga 3) The Broken Heavens
|
Kameron Hurley
|
[
"fantasy",
"LGBT",
"science fiction fantasy"
] |
[] |
Chapter 10
|
Lilia gripped her walking stick so tightly her hand hurt. This could not be, she thought. Not after all this time, after all the work she had done, after how far she had come, after all the delicate alliances they had maintained. Ahkio the coward, the pacifist, was dead, surely? Meyna herself had seen it, wept over it, thrown things and rent her own garments and then happily taken the title of Catori.
Had Meyna lied?
Lilia just inside the thorn fence at the edge of camp, gnawing at one of her new nails; the quick was already exposed, soft as a dragonfly wing. It had become an unconscious habit gnawing away at pieces of herself while her mind was elsewhere.
A few of her most fervent supporters stood a good way distant, Salifa at the head of them, hand on her weapon. Yisaoh and Meyna had tried to keep everyone away from the two men who had arrived at the fence, but the beribboned heads of Lilia's supporters were visible even from the trees. Lilia worried over them, too, and how they would react to the arrival of this man with Ahkio's face. Namia kept close to Lilia's side, nose raised, sniffing the air.
Lilia admitted that one of the men did look like Ahkio; longer hair, leaner face, his eyes more sunken, and shoulders bowed, but it was more than a mere resemblance. He either really was the Kai, or he was another version of the Kai, seeking to throw them into exactly this kind of turmoil.
She kept to one side, letting Yisaoh and Meyna meet the two men as equals. Yisaoh's face was haggard, shocked, but Meyna only stared at the men fiercely. Lilia tried to place who the sly little man next to Ahkio might be. Liaro? The cousin? That sounded right. An average man, with a long pockmarked face and twisted mouth that made it seem as if he found everything around him either terribly funny or mind-bogglingly complex.
Yisaoh already had the nub of her cigarette out. She did not light it, but sucked on the end, contemplative. "I heard you were dead."
"And I heard you were dead," said the man who shared Kai Ahkio's face. He folded his hands under his armpits. Both men bore bloody scratches on their necks and faces. Brambles clung to their rough-spun clothing. They were sweat-soaked, in need of a wash, with tangled hair and grubby knees. Lilia suspected that having all your limbs sewn back on – or whatever he was going to propose had happened to him – resulted in some rough living.
Meyna followed Ahkio's gesture. "I saw you die," Meyna said. "Ora Nasaka came down covered in your blood. I hid, but I saw your body. It's impossible that you are our Kai. You are someone else."
"I don't remember any of that," Ahkio said. "I'm afraid there's a good deal I don't remember about the final days of Dhai."
The last time Lilia had seen Ahkio was when he told her he refused to go through with her plan to poison the Tai Mora Empress, back at Kuallina before its eventual fall. Yisaoh had drugged him, and they'd gone around him to hold the dinner anyway. They then tried and failed to kill Kirana on their own. The real Ahkio would remember that, but this one didn't even seem to recall his own death.
"You were supposed to secure Oma's temple," Yisaoh said, "after Kuallina fell. That didn't go very well, turns out. We're all a little mad about that, as those temples could have outlasted any seige. You had only to secure them."
"I'm sorry," Ahkio said. "I… have no memory of any of that, either. I've been–"
"He's been very ill," Liaro said. "It's a strange time."
"How did you find us?" Lilia asked.
Liaro glanced over at her, as if noticing her for the first time. He picked at his lip; an old scab. From what? Had Ahkio hit him? "There's much to explain. We understand that. If you will sit with us, offer tea, and–"
"Your hands," Meyna said, holding out her own.
"You really should be offering tea first," Liaro said, wryly.
"I'm not Mohrai," Meyna said. "Perhaps she would have been more welcoming to potential Tai Mora."
"Where is Mohrai?" Ahkio asked, voice a little high and warbling, like a child's.
"Dead," Meyna said, sharply. "But our child is alive, if that concerns you."
"Our… child?"
"Ahkio, you declared little Hasao Li Kai in the Sanctuary of Oma's Temple. We have dozens of witnesses."
"I don't…" Ahkio shook his head. "I'm sorry, there's much I don't remember."
Liaro reached over and squeezed Ahkio's shoulder.
"Your hands," Meyna insisted.
"Meyna," Ahkio said, "I'm still trying to understand the state of things here. Where is Tir? Rhin and Hadaoh? Is Mey-mey–"
"Your hands!"
He held them out.
His hands were covered in old burn scars; twisted, shiny flesh that had never healed properly. Lilia heard that he had gotten the scars trying to pull his mother from a burning shelter in one of the old Dorinah camps for Dhai exiles.
Meyna took his hands in hers and scrutinized them; Yisaoh did the same, bending just over her shoulder, though honestly, Lilia thought, Meyna was the one more likely to notice a difference in the scar patterns. The Kai had lived with her for several years.
Meyna pushed his hands away. "I'm sorry, but… you're dead, Ahkio."
Liaro said, "I found him three months ago, wandering up in the hills above Oma's Temple. He was half-mad, living on moss and tree bark. It's taken this long to get his head straight. He's missing great gaps of time. But it's him, Meyna. I wouldn't have spent all this time trying to find you both, and Mohrai too, if I didn't believe it was him."
"There are all sorts of people wandering around now," Yisaoh said. "There's no way to determine if he's truly our Ahkio, or not."
"That's true of anyone here, then," Liaro said. "By that logic no one should be listening to a word you're saying either."
Ahkio waved his hand. "I remember everything that happened here, yes, in this Dhai, right up until the end of summer, before–" He exchanged a glance with Liaro. "Before what happened at Kuallina. That… I have no memory of anything after that. But the rest of my memory is very clear. I remember Nasaka telling me Kirana had died. I remember Ghrasia… Sai Hofsha, the terrible Tai Mora emissary. And I remember bringing all the clans together, and exiling you, Yisaoh, and you, Meyna. I still stand by that."
"Now we're all stuck in exile together," Yisaoh muttered.
"How did he lose this last year?" Lilia said. "A whole year? That's… I've never heard of that."
"Exactly!" Liaro said. "A Tai Mora would have had a much better story, wouldn't they?"
Lilia's skin prickled. She did not like any of this: not his face, not his stories, not what this could mean for their carefully negotiated alliance and her plan to hit back at the Tai Mora. The Ahkio she knew had been averse to naked conflict of any kind, and Lilia did not like how Meyna looked at him. There was something between them still, even if it was just the memory of what they had.
"Not just Tai Mora," Lilia said, raising her voice. "There are far more worlds in play now. It's going to become easier and easier for all of us to get replaced by impostors. If Meyna saw him dead, this isn't him. But maybe he's not a Tai Mora, either. Maybe he is from some closer world, one even more like ours. He may not even know he's an impostor himself."
"Liaro, speak to us privately," Meyna said.
Liaro crossed the thorn fence. Lilia drew back a step. The stink of him carried, this close; the two men desperately needed a wash. Neither had answered how they found the camp yet, and that disturbed her. A patrol stood a few paces distant; the same patrol that had escorted them here. But they should not even have come this close. The Woodland was a large place, and Lilia had worked hard to disguise their presence here and distract Tai Mora patrols into covering other areas.
Yisaoh and Meyna broke away from Meyna's retinue, and Lilia followed them to the lee of a great bonsa tree. From there they could still see Ahkio, Meyna's people, and Lilia's supporters, but could not be overheard.
Rain still dripped from the giant leaves above. Lilia kept blinking to clear her eyes. Namia circled around to the other side of the tree, where it was drier.
"You're convinced of this?" Yisaoh asked Liaro.
"He's the real Ahkio," Liaro said. "Ask him anything."
"Are you the real Liaro?" Lilia said. "We have no way of verifying who either of you are."
"Are you the real… whoever you are?" Liaro said, lip curled.
Lilia said, "Your tone won't gain you any favor here." Her foot ached, and her mind was already elsewhere. Mohrai dead, and Ahkio suddenly alive. It would upset the power balance here. If she wanted to strike back at the Tai Mora, it needed to be now, before all of this was settled.
"He remembers nothing of Kuallina," Liaro said, ignoring her and turning back to Meyna, "or the events leading up to it. Now, here's the strange part. I'm going to tell you something and it's going to sound mad."
"Madder than you do already?" Yisaoh said, digging into her pocket for another cigarette stub and coming up empty. "This should be entertaining."
"Something happened to Ahkio before Kuallina," Liaro said. "The day he finally locked up Ora Nasaka and booted out Sai Hofsha, he said he did it because he'd come to know the future. He had already seen the day after that one, and whatever he saw drove him to make those two decisions. He had all these outrageous questions that morning, when he came upstairs from the temple basement. Was Ora Nasaka alive? Who was Kai? Did he look the same? Who teaches mathematics? He said he'd gone… back. He went into the belly of Oma's Temple, there among the roots, and pressed his hand to a stone bearing the temple's mark and–"
"And he proved this to you?" Yisaoh said.
"I was there the first time he touched that stone," Liaro said. "The second, he went alone."
"I'm confused," Lilia said. "Did he go back in time the first time he touched the stone?"
"No, he said he met a temple keeper? But the second time, that's when it was different."
"Why would it be different?" Yisaoh asked.
"Because someone sabotaged the stone," Liaro said. "He thinks it may have been Ora Almeysia. Whatever she did, he lost access to this temple keeper, but what the keeper, or the temple, or someone left behind was this… strange ability to leap back a day."
"How many times has it done it?" Lilia asked. "Leapt back?"
"Just the once," Liaro said. "He told me about it, and how inconsequential the day seemed. He wondered why he was given this chance to relive a day that wasn't important. So, I guess he decided to make it important, and that's when he decided to put Ora Nasaka in the gaol and kicked out the Tai Mora emissary, as I said. He would never have done those things if he hadn't been rattled. He's telling the truth. I know it."
Spittle flecked Liaro's lips. The passion and insistence in his voice convinced Lilia that whether or not this really was their Ahkio, Liaro believed Ahkio's story. Stepping back a day in time certainly wasn't the strangest thing she'd seen or heard since Oma came into the sky.
Lilia noted that they were drawing a few onlookers, despite the threat of the tumbleterrors. "Let's take this to the tent," Lilia said. "We are going to draw the tumbleterrors."
They brought Ahkio and Liaro to one of the above-ground tents that had been set up for the funerary feast. Meyna put a standing order on keeping any more onlookers below ground until their next move was sorted. But Lilia knew enough about the life of gossip to suspect that would do little but enflame the rumors no doubt already circling through the chambers below.
Lilia led the questioning, speaking up before the others were ready. The Tai Mora were interested in the temple basements, Caisa had said. But if they had encountered this stone that Ahkio and Liaro talked about, it hadn't appeared in any of Caisa's reports.
"What else can you tell us about the temple basements?" Lilia asked. "The Tai Mora have uncovered a level below the one you speak of. An old room for channeling the power of the satellites. Did you ever access that room?"
"No," Ahkio said. He folded his hands in his lap and stared at Namia. Shifted uncomfortably. He touched his hair once or twice; the matted tangle of it pulled away from his thin, pretty face. "Liaro and I found the stone while investigating something Kirana and my aunt Etena alluded to in some of their writings. When I touched the obelisk… I… went somewhere else."
"Like through the seams between the worlds?" Lilia asked. "The way omajistas do? To another world? The Tai Mora world?"
He shook his head. "This was… different. I went to… some other time. The temple, but not as we knew it. A woman was there, calling herself Keeper Ti-Li."
"A keeper?" Lilia asked. "Not a creature, or a beast, or… she said she was a keeper?"
"Yes. The keepers are not… the temples, I think. The keepers are like… ghosts of people, maybe souls left to watch over the temples. She said she was unstuck in time. Maybe that's why the stone can do what it… did. Ti-Li said the stone had been sabotaged by Ora Almeysia. But I wanted to try and visit her again, to learn more. Back then… I was still hoping to find some way to turn back the Tai Mora, maybe by using the temples."
"What did she tell you about the temples?" Lilia asked.
"She told me the temples were alive, that they are living… transference engines, she called them. She said they were created a very long time ago. Properly controlled, they could be used to harness the power of the satellites."
"Did she say how to control them?" Lilia asked.
"How is this relevant?" Meyna said. "Whatever the Tai Mora are doing in the temples doesn't concern us. We're going to leave Dhai."
"Leave?" Ahkio said.
"A moment, Meyna," Lilia said. "What exactly did this temple keeper tell you?"
Ahkio rubbed his forehead. "It was a long time ago. She… it? She said they created the temples, with living transference engines, to kill something infecting their sky. But they broke it apart instead, and now the pieces travel among all the worlds. She said only the engines could stop it."
"But how?" Lilia pressed.
"She didn't know. All she could tell me was how they broke the worlds, not how to… fix them again."
"Meyna," Lilia said, "Caisa brought us information that–"
Meyna held up a hand. "No more talk of temples. Walking into one of these temples would be suicide at best. The Tai Mora have them warded and guarded. They are teeming with jistas."
"Caisa is still alive?" Ahkio asked. "She was my assistant, for a time."
"She is," Lilia said carefully.
"Please," Ahkio said, "what's happened here since I've been gone? Liaro could only tell me what happened in the valley. There are so few survivors there. So many bodies were burned and buried, like chattel."
"I'll tell you more of that," Meyna said, "once we decide what to do with you."
"There was clearly an Ahkio here for the fall of Kuallina," Lilia said. "If you don't remember any of that, what do you remember? Where did you find yourself? In the Woodland?"
"No. I woke up in the temple. In my own bed, as the Tai Mora took the temple."
"You died when the Tai Mora took the temple," Yisaoh said. "You're telling us that when our Ahkio died, you just… appeared? Woke up in his bed?"
"I know it sounds mad, but so does traveling between worlds, doesn't it? I remember is touching the stone, and then–"
"I've never heard of the temples doing this," Lilia said. She wondered what else they didn't yet know about the temples, if his story was to be believed.
"Lilia, will you leave us?" Meyna asked. "Yisaoh and I have a real history with Ahkio. Let us speak to him alone. Liaro, could you also wait outside?"
Lilia bit her tongue. She hoped Yisaoh would intercede, but Yisaoh only shrugged. "Yes," Yisaoh said, "we will send for you."
Lilia tried to stifle her grimace, and turned quickly so they could not see the shift in her expression.
She limped from the tent and into the clearing outside, and Namia followed. The wood had gone quiet; the tumbleterrors would have scared away most of the sentient flora and fauna. She rubbed her arms.
Liaro stayed near the tent. As Lilia waited, the storm began to clear, and the rain ceased. Namia sprawled beside her in a sudden sunbeam.
Yisaoh finally came out, hands pushed deep into her pockets, and walked over to Lilia. Shook her head.
"What are you going to do?" Lilia said.
"Ahkio can be controlled," Yisaoh said. "Meyna loves the idea of having him beside her. It gives her legitimacy. I could almost wonder if she knew about him, before, if murdering Mohrai was done knowing Ahkio would come back."
"That's… well, I wouldn't put that past her. Couldn't she just… get rid of him?"
"We can't just kill him," Yisaoh said, but there was no judgment in her tone, only a bored resignation. "I couldn't find a lie, when we spoke to him alone in there. He insists he wants nothing from us, to just go back to being a little religious teacher, but you know how people will react to that."
"They'll follow him," Lilia said. "Some will. How many will follow him into some fool scheme? He's not made for these times. He'll lead them to disaster, the same way he led Dhai to disaster."
"No Kai could have stopped this," Yisaoh said. "Not even if our Kirana had lived. There was no way to win this. You can only destroy monsters like that by becoming one, and no Kai was going to do that to the Dhai."
"What about what he said, about the temple?"
"Going back in time?" Yisaoh snorted. "Who knows?"
"The other part. About the temples being transference engines meant to channel the power of the satellites. We intuited that, but he's confirmed it. The Tai Mora are going to harness that power. That's what they're doing in those basements. They are going to figure out how to break the world, and Meyna wants us to just run away."
"Oh, Lilia." Yisaoh sighed. "Always scheming. First you want to murder Tai Mora, then you want to… what? Take over the temples? If you haven't noticed, we can't even feed ourselves."
Lilia gazed at the tent, and Liaro, who squatted outside it, cracking his knuckles. "I want to see what's down there for myself," Lilia said.
"Good luck with that," Yisaoh said.
"I have people in every temple," Lilia said. "Reconnaissance would not be too difficult, or dangerous."
"Are you listening to yourself right now? Hasn't Caisa given you enough diagrams? And it doesn't matter! We're leaving."
"You may be," Lilia said. "I'm not. Not yet." A plan was beginning to form in her mind, one that relied on some of the same logistics as her plan to strike back at the Tai Mora. Infiltrating one of the temples would be a kind of revenge, after all. She considered the sort of damage she could do to them, if she knew more than them, if she took control of one of these transference engines for herself, or sabotaged them.
"I know that look," Yisaoh said. "Whatever you're scheming, don't do it."
"I have a plan."
"Tira's tears. You and your little cultists are going to murder yourselves."
"If we do," Lilia said, "we will be taking a lot of Tai Mora with us. Come on, Namia."
Lilia touched the girl's shoulder, and Namia followed as Lilia headed back to the entrance to their underground warren.
"You and your little cultists can do what you like!" Yisaoh called after her. "You know Meyna will be pleased if you're gone! She's going to hope you all die!"
Lilia did not answer, but glanced down at Namia. "What's the nearest temple, Namia?"
Namia signed, "Tira."
"That's right," Lilia said. "It's been a long time since I visited Tira's Temple. Let's change that."
"Danger," Namia signed.
Lilia pushed her hands away.
|
(Worldbreaker Saga 3) The Broken Heavens
|
Kameron Hurley
|
[
"fantasy",
"LGBT",
"science fiction fantasy"
] |
[] |
Chapter 11
|
Through the wink, back to the battlefield outside the stronghold called Daorian that had eaten so many of Natanial's mercenary soldiers in the last months. Natanial kept his mouth shut as he escorted Anavha to Monshara's tent. He almost told Monshara he'd brought her a gift, and thought better of it. That was something Anavha's wife would have said, some baser evil.
Instead, Natanial presented him as an omajista, the one they needed to breach Daorian's defenses and end the Tai Mora campaign in this idiot country.
"He isn't much to look at," Monshara said, in Tai Mora.
"He's powerful enough to open a wink back from Aaldia to get us here. He has a good shot at opening one for an army."
"I know you're talking about me," Anavha said, in Dorinah.
"You aren't fit for battle," Monshara said, switching to the same language.
"There'll be no battling," Natanial said, keeping his voice warm and even, because at the word "battle" Anavha had trembled like a leaf. "You'll open a wink, a gate, for the army, is all. Monshara will guide events from there."
Anavha reminded him, as ever, of a frightened young animal. He required a soft voice and a light touch.
"I'd like you to find a place for him here in the village, somewhere he won't be disturbed," Natanial said.
"But I want to stay with you," Anavha said.
"I have my people up the hill."
"Then I'll camp with you there."
"You wouldn't like it," Natanial said. "Cold and filthy. Full of violence." He imagined Anavha meeting some of the people he employed.
"I can provide him a room and protection," Monshara said.
"Protection," Natanial reiterated, switching back to Tai Mora again, "not a jail cell. He isn't a prisoner. He'll bolt if you treat him like one."
"I wouldn't dream of it," Monshara said.
"Tomorrow, then?"
"Tomorrow," she said, and gestured for Anavha to go with her.
Natanial could not get the boy's terrified face from his mind.
Natanial knew the smell of war the way he knew the smell of birth. His mother had borne him on a battlefield, somewhere on the outer islands north of Dorinah. Like many Aaldian sailors, she had also done her time as a mercenary, and he grew up with the smell of blood and steel and the sea. Standing outside the Dorinah village, with the stink of the Tai Mora army behind him and the tangy brine of the sea ahead of him, he was brought back to those simpler times. Birth and death, the sea and the land. All that mattered was having a ship, enough to eat, a family, a purpose. Once he had lost all those things, he was adrift. He was here.
Monshara had brought casks of blood with her. Natanial had assumed that would be entirely unnecessary, but he had no idea how powerful Anavha was, or how well he had mastered his gift in the year since he had last seen him. Better prepared than not.
As Monshara led them down the road, both of them astride large black bears, Natanial appraised Anavha, looking for signs of hurt or discomfort. Anavha's face was drawn, but his complexion was clear, and Natanial did not mark any injury. He had dressed in Tai Mora clothes: wide-legged trousers and a flowing tunic and vest that buttoned up the front. The hat he bore was ridiculous, certainly, but the suns were high and hot.
The cart of blood waited by Natanial's side. His mercenaries were lined up at the flank of Monshara's main force. They would not go in after them, but wait outside the walls to clean up any stragglers. Otolyn had grumbled about that, upset at their chances of getting any loot that way, but Natanial was firm. They had incurred enough losses when he disobeyed orders and saved Monshara's last assault from becoming a rout.
"I'll be beside you the whole time," Natanial told Anavha. "We'll stay here and keep it open. We don't go in until it's done."
Monshara waved the cart driver down, and he rolled up the two barrels of blood.
"What's this?" Anavha said, but the driver was already pushing over the barrel, spilling reeking, clotting blood all over the road.
"In case you need a little help," Monshara said.
Anavha wrinkled his nose and raised his hands.
The air grew heavy. The hair on the back of Natanial's arms stood on end. A slight trembling shook the ground, and rumbled across the road, making little waves in the blood.
Ahead of the great army, the air rippled.
Monshara rode her bear ahead, to get in position and ready her troops.
A snarling slash opened in the fabric of the air. From his seat, Natanial could make out a stone room. It could be any place at all, from the look of it, but he suspected it was somewhere in Daorian that Anavha knew. He had heard it was easier to open a passage where one had been.
Monshara waved a scout in, a very brave girl, no doubt, who barreled through with her bear into the stone house.
Natanial glanced at Anavha, but his face was calm. "You've learned much since I last saw you," Natanial said.
"A little," Anavha said. "I had a good teacher here. But mostly… the difference is that the power's here." He nodded at Oma's blaring red eye. "I can feel it, like a heartbeat."
The scout returned and reported to Monshara. They were too far away for Natanial to make out the words, but Monshara waved her soldiers in.
There was only enough room for them to go four abreast, and the pace was slow. The pace worried Natanial, because if there was any sizable counter force inside, they could stopper up the house, or set it on fire, and completely cut them off.
Monshara rode over to Natanial and Anavha. "Can we open another gate?" she said, clearly thinking the same thing about their vulnerability. "I want to come in at them from several places."
"I could," Anavha said, "but I couldn't hold it as long. This is my sister-in-law's house. Any other place in Daorian… I don't know as well."
Monshara said. "My people are vulnerable here. Isn't there somewhere else? Near the harbor, maybe?"
"I'll try," Anavha said.
"We shouldn't push him," Natanial said.
"He's an adult," Monshara said. "He can tell me what he can and can't do. Can you do it or not?"
Anavha said, "I can." He spread his arms wide. Natanial held his breath and reflexively reached for the hilt of his ax.
Anavha pushed one arm toward the existing gate, and concentrated hard on a spot twenty paces distant. This time, the blood in the barrels began to leak from the seams between the slats, oozing thickly onto the ground. Natanial's skin prickled. The blood rose from the ground, the droplets emerging from the barrels and coalescing into a winding spiral in the air. Monshara's troops, entering the other gateway, paid it no mind.
Anavha bit his lip. Natanial moved to stand near him. "Hold the first one," Natanial said. "That's more important."
"I have–" Anavha said, and then the world shifted.
Natanial's stomach heaved. He lurched forward as the sky itself seemed to move around him. One moment he was standing outside Asaolina, Anavha just an arm's length away, and the next, he was standing in a dark alley. The sky above juddered. Nausea overcame him, and he vomited into the gutter. When his stomach was empty, he drooled bile and turned and saw Anavha lying on the ground a few paces away.
Natanial crawled over to him, dragging his ax with him.
"Anavha?" Natanial patted his cheek. "Anavha?" Screaming came from the streets on either side of the narrow alley. He smelled smoke.
Anavha's eyelids flickered.
"Anavha, where are we?" Natanial said.
Anavha opened his eyes, and Natanial helped him up. Natanial gazed into the sky; still the same lavender of home, so hopefully they had not traveled very far. The stonework indicated they were somewhere within the city of Daorian, but he wasn't sure where.
"I…" Anavha took it all in, his expression as confused as Natanial felt. "I don't know," Anavha said. "I was trying to open a gate near the harbor."
Natanial sniffed the air, but could smell nothing over the smoke. "Let's move," he said. "Stay near me."
"I can take us–"
"No," Natanial said; his stomach protested. "Seven hells, where are we?"
"I don't know."
"What else can you do with these skills of yours? Because we'll need them. Stay with me! The bulk of the force will have marched for the hold. We'll catch up with them. I didn't want you here, but if you're here, we might as well make the most of it."
Natanial drew his ax and followed the sinuous alley. He ducked under an archway and checked both ways before running across a main street. Bodies lay in the street, Tai Mora and Dorinah, most civilian. One Tai Mora was looting a body. Flames licked at the remains of a storefront. The smell of smoke wafted down the street, coming mostly from the market area. It had been a long time since he was last in Daorian. He had bided his time there getting close to the Empress's daughter, working his way into her good graces and then her bed, before finally murdering her.
As he entered the next intersection, an arrow zipped past his head. Natanial ducked back into the street he'd come from, throwing one arm in front of Anavha and pinning him to the wall. Ahead, a group of Dorinah soldiers and civilians had set up a barricade, holding the street. Two dozen dead Tai Mora were scattered on the other side of the barrier.
"Have you used your gift on anything but winks… gates?" Natanial asked.
"No," Anavha said.
Natanial glanced back into the street and got a quick count of the defenders. The more he pushed Anavha, the more likely he was to find himself severed in half by some ill-timed gate. He swore in Tordinian. Anavha's face darkened.
"I'm sorry," Anavha said.
"Let me think," Natanial said.
Anavha pointed at the storefront at the corner. It had once been a teahouse, and the roof over the outside dining area had partially collapsed, tilting at a dangerous right angle.
"We could duck down there," Anavha said.
"They have arrows," Natanial said.
"The barricades are too high," Anavha said. "See that angle on the roof? They are firing down at us. The roof will be in their way."
Natanial peered at the angle of the roof, and saw that Anavha was right. "How in Laine's hell did you figure that?" he said.
"Angles," Anavha said. "Giska taught me painting. You start to see angles in things, how the light hits them. So, I noticed."
Natanial took Anavha's hand and sprinted for the building. Those at the barricade yelled and cursed, but he and Anavha were well gone by then, pounding through the next narrow intersection.
He pulled Anavha into the relative shelter of a great wooden door. Twelve paces distant, a woman dressed in a homespun tunic was crying over the body of a dead young woman, which lay mangled in the street, bleeding into the gutter.
Just ahead, a shimmering line of Tai Mora in their chitinous red armor crawled up the road toward the towering fortress at the center of the city.
Natanial went after them, keeping his distance, because neither of them wore anything identifying which side they were on.
"Is there any way for you to locate someone?" Natanial asked as they hurried after the army. "We need to find Monshara."
"She was still at the house, wasn't she?" Anavha said. "I can take you to the house. The gate is there! It should still be open."
"How far is it from here?"
Anavha stopped and stared at the smoking buildings. A riderless dog wandered out of a teahouse. Abandoned goods littered the streets, and glassy-eyed civilians wandered aimlessly. Most residents were clearly starving. Natanial noted that some of the bodies in the alleys were emaciated, tossed from houses and piled up like bags of sticks. A few had threadbare blankets thrown over them.
"This way," Anavha said, and now he took Natanial's hand and pulled him through the falling city.
They wended down bloody streets, and dodged civilians throwing roof tiles. Natanial caught a big riderless dog and walked with it next to them, using the dog for cover against the persistent rain of objects heaved from rooftops. He had no interest in dying by roof tile.
Finally, they met up with a coterie of Tai Mora soldiers. Natanial held up his hands and called out the name of his company, and they went by them, each still eying the other warily. Around the next corner was a modest stone house, three stories tall. Outside, Monshara sat there atop a large bear, surveying the troops still pouring out. A little sparrow perched on her shoulder.
Monshara waved them over through the lines of soldiers. "We need him at the gates," she said. "We're having trouble penetrating the fortress itself, and I don't want to waste any more time. Can he do it? Something certainly got fucked up back there."
Natanial told Anavha what they needed. Anavha shook his head. "I could, but… I have to close these other two gates first. I'm afraid of what would happen if I didn't. It might hurt people."
Natanial found that strangely amusing, that Anavha cared so much about accidently cutting a soldier in half when the soldiers he had unleashed on his own city were in the process of burning it to the ground.
"Make sure everyone is in the city first," Natanial said. "Then he can close these gates."
"We just got the main city door open," Monshara said, gesturing to the little bird on her shoulder. "I've ordered the rest to come in that way, including your mop-up crew. Mount up and follow me. Give me a moment to order the gates cleared, and you can close them."
Monshara relayed her orders, and after a time, the march of soldiers through the building became a trickle, then ceased. Monshara lined up the force of about seventy fighters and found a second mount for Anavha.
Once ready, she gave the order to close the winks. Anavha must have done something, though Natanial didn't feel the change. Anavha simply nodded and said, "Done."
As the soldiers began to march, with Anavha and Natanial at the rear, Natanial heard a great groaning behind them, then a crash. The stone house collapsed under itself, blowing dust and debris out the front of what remained of the façade.
Natanial kept his ax handy as they marched.
The fight took them up through the city of Daorian and to the tall walls around the central fortress. The fortress of Daorian was not a living hold like those in Dhai and Saiduan. The Empress hated the flora and fauna of the world with such an intensity that she scoured the land as sterile as she could make it each year.
As they came to the wall, it was already under siege, with the last of the city's jista defenders on the walls, and Monshara's giving them a fiery onslaught.
Monshara wanted Anavha kept to the back of the company, to protect him. It was not until Natanial rode up alongside Anavha to supervise him while he created his gate that he realized Anavha was crying.
Anavha opened a great wink within the walls of the hold itself. It wavered briefly, and a shower of stones came down before the thing solidified. If it wavered while the army went through it, it was likely to kill a good many of them.
Natanial waited at the back with Anavha, ensuring there were as many jistas and Dorinah soldiers killed as possible before they crossed through. When they finally did, he turned to see his own force swarming through the city, easily recognizable by their drabber clothing, their leather armor. They would eat well and be happy tonight.
When the fortress itself was well cleared, Monshara came back for him and Anavha where they waited in the great courtyard below.
"I have something for you to see," Monshara said.
Natanial picked his way after Monshara, Anavha coming behind. They went into the hold and up and up. She led him to the shattered door of a great hall. A little woman crouched in a far corner, face over her hands. A long chatelaine dangled from her waist. Even with her face covered, her dark hair and skinny frame marked her as a dajian, a Dhai slave, and he was amazed one had survived this long.
Among the bodies of the Dorinah lying all around him, he saw a few twisted forms that he recognized from Tordin: the Empress's strange, insect-like people. Some had survived the great fire there, the one that Zezili Hasaria ignited in an attempt to stop their rise. He wondered how many they had killed there, and if these were truly survivors from that conflagration or simply from some other nest elsewhere.
"He's here," Monshara said, stepping over a broken beam and through a charred, splintered doorway so massive that Natanial wondered what such a thing was doing this deep inside the hold. Did they expect dogs and carts to go through?
As he entered, he realized this was the throne room of the Dorinah queens. The great purple carpet was torn and stained. Eight dead animals, large as bears, lay in a pile at his left. It took half a moment to realize that's what they were.
The body of the Empress herself lay awkwardly on the steps of her dais, neck broken, her legs canted at a hard left angle, fingers clenched, mouth set in a sneering rictus. Someone had disemboweled her and cut her in half, no doubt to ensure she didn't come back. And he didn't blame them. Her skirts were askew, and under them he could see each of her four legs. The cut across her waspish waist had sprouted various organs, which all looked fairly normal. She and her kin bled out just like any other.
Monshara pointed at the great silver throne on the dais. Natanial thought she meant to get his reaction to its artistry, and prepared an appropriate response, but as he formed the words, he noticed the man curled up against the throne, arms clinging to it. Thick black hair, curled and greasy, hung into his eyes and down his back. His beard was full, only a little gray mixed with the black. He was leaner than he should be, and as Natanial approached, he saw the man only had one hand.
While Natanial knew who this must be, his mind took some time to process it. "Saradyn?" he said.
The man raised the mop of his head. His eyes were large, dark, haunted; the same haunted look Saradyn always had, for he saw ghosts.
"You've come," Saradyn said. "It was foretold that you would come. She has seen it!" This last bit he shouted at the ceiling, gaze raised to the sky as if shouting at some god.
"Saradyn," Natanial said. "I'd hoped you were dead with Zezili."
Saradyn fixed a dark, sunken eye on Natanial. "Traitor," he said.
"Perhaps," Natanial said. "But who is it you're working for here?"
"Not for… they are mine. I command them."
"What's he rambling about?" Monshara said.
A clacking sound came from behind Saradyn. The walls began to move, revealing dark shapes twisted into the shadows behind the massive purple curtains.
Natanial brought up his ax. The shadows seemed to peel from the walls and moved toward them. As they came into the light, the shapes resolved into four-legged, green-eyed figures with human faces and narrow torsos.
"Didn't you clear this room?" Natanial yelled at Monshara.
Anavha screamed. Natanial stepped closer to him to protect him. The air shuddered. Natanial's ears popped as the pressure of the room changed.
"I did!" Monshara said. "I don't know where they came from!"
Great gaping holes appeared in the air all around them. One sliced clean through the tip of Natanial's ax, swallowing it into darkness. The tears in the world yawned open like hungry mouths: opaque, like gazing into impossibly deep water.
Natanial froze. Half of Monshara's sword disappeared into one of the black circles, cut neatly in two.
"Don't move, Monshara!" Natanial said. Anavha, too, had quieted, though his face was twisted.
"Control it, Anavha!" Natanial said.
The shrieking figures clacked around and through the holes in the air. Some lost limbs, bits of faces, digits. Others clattered around, regardless. One lost nearly all of its head, and the body meandered on for several paces before falling at Natanial's feet.
Anavha sweated heavily. His hands trembled. "I can't stop it," he said, just loud enough for Natanial to hear him over the figures.
"Fucking amateurs!" Monshara yelled. "Shut it down!"
The black holes became more focused, tight little speckles crawling across the air like demented dust motes. Natanial blinked furiously, as if he could dispel the floating blackness from his vision.
One of the creatures slipped through the maze of tears in reality, a hunk of its elbow missing, the lower arm hanging by a hank of skin. Natanial gouged it in the head with the sheared handle of his ax, running it through the eye.
"Anavha!" Natanial yelled, again, trying to keep an eye on him without bumbling into one of the tears in the world.
Saradyn heaved himself up from behind the throne and stumbled toward Anavha. "These are mine," Saradyn said. "My women! My pets! Mine!"
He stumbled, miraculously weaving in and out of the puckered black holes. Natanial had no interest in losing his own limbs, but Saradyn's rambling, drunken path was taking him closer to Anavha.
Natanial hefted the ax handle, weighing his options. Saradyn was six paces from Anavha. Five.
Natanial threw his ax handle. It hit Anavha squarely in the back of the head. Anavha gasped, clutched at his head, and bowled over. The black eyes winked out. Natanial crossed to Saradyn and headbutted him. Natanial pulled a knife from Saradyn's belt and backed up against Anavha, who had fallen to his knees, still clutching at the back of his head. Blood seeped through his fingers. That could make things even worse.
"Be calm," Natanial said. "Calm yourself the way you were taught. We have this."
Most of the creatures, a dozen in all, were on the ground or barely standing, too injured and stunned to continue. They peered at Natanial and Anavha with their beady eyes.
Seven soldiers came in from the door behind them. One wore the purple coat of a sinajista.
"Burn these things!" Monshara said.
Natanial pointed at Saradyn. "But not him," he said. "Leave him."
The creatures went up in flame. They oozed a thick, oily smoke that left those who remained coughing heavily. Natanial pulled Anavha to his feet and dragged him over to the soldiers, near the door where the air was better, then went back for Saradyn. Monshara leaned in the doorway with the soldiers, being tended by a passing medic.
"Why do you want that mad old man?" Monshara said.
"Saradyn is many things," Natanial said. "But he has one especially useful skill. He's worth taking back with us."
"I don't have time for laggards," Monshara said. "Speak plainly."
Natanial gazed into Saradyn's haggard face: the matted hair, the tangled beard, and the dark eyes – eyes that still held the wild, angry soul of a man Natanial had believed could unite Tordin.
"Your empress needs a way to detect infiltrators," Natanial said, "to see who's from this world and who isn't, to root out all those little spies in her temples. I've seen this man do that. Daorian is fallen. You and I need to remind your empress just how useful we are to her."
|
(Worldbreaker Saga 3) The Broken Heavens
|
Kameron Hurley
|
[
"fantasy",
"LGBT",
"science fiction fantasy"
] |
[] |
Chapter 12
|
Luna sat with Yisaoh over tea and half of a biscuit, still shivering with the memory of the field of the dead, though ze had cleaned off the mud and sludge from hir face and changed clothes. It had been over an hour, and still no one had opened a wink to them. They sat in a small alcove in what had once been a very grand hall. Tirajista-trained vines covered most of the windows, but light still cut through in places, illuminating the dusty, intricately tiled floor. The people and beasts that swam across the floor's design were utterly foreign to Luna.
"Does this happen a lot?" Luna asked. "Not being able to call on Oma?"
"More than Kirana would like," Yisaoh said. She offered her own biscuit to her daughter, Tasia, who took it and scampered off into the hall. Tasia had insisted on having tea; a treat, here, Luna discovered. Weak tea and moldering biscuits.
"Do you have many children?"
"Three."
"The others went over?"
"Yes, they are living with Kirana in that temple."
Luna could not finish hir own biscuit. Hir stomach cramped painfully. The larvae of little weevils waved their maggoty forms at hir from inside of it as ze set down the rest. More protein, ze thought wearily, and washed it down with the rest of the tea. Hir stomach cramped. Though hunger roared again since ze had eaten, ze knew from long practice that ze needed to go slowly or ze would vomit everything up, or worse.
They sat in silence while the toxic wind rattled the windows and makeshift coverings around the stronghold.
"There are two dozen of us still here," Yisaoh said. "Not a lot, by any standard." She spoke softly, staring into her tea, as if talking to herself. "What are another two dozen dead, after all this blood and sorrow?"
"You destroyed the Saiduan. All of them. For what? For nothing."
Yisaoh sighed. "I cannot make you help us. Nor can Kirana, as much as she would like to believe herself a god."
"You aren't as confident in her anymore."
Yisaoh peered at her. "Perhaps not. She knows that. She knows I question these decisions. As do you, as you have every right to. But Luna… you were willing to die rather than help end all this. What if you chose to live?"
The air around them grew heavy. Luna tensed. Hir ears popped.
A slender tear appeared six paces away, beside the large empty hearth, certainly meant for cooking more than heat here.
"Oma has returned," Yisaoh murmured.
The seam widened, and a jista, Suari, stepped through, flanked by two soldiers.
"Consort Yisaoh? You are well?" Suari asked, tentative, gaze darting about the foyer.
"The child doesn't bite," Yisaoh said. "We had a chat."
"Empress Kirana said to bring hir back immediately, once we held Oma again."
"Where is Kirana?" Yisaoh asked.
"There has been an… incident. Nothing to worry about, consort. But an urgent matter the Empress needed to address."
"There was a time I was her most urgent matter," Yisaoh said, and stood. She offered a hand to Luna. "I'm sorry, but you must go back."
"She will put me in a cell again," Luna said.
"Suari, you will tell the Empress I request that she release Luna when she has helped with the task set her. No more death. No more imprisonment."
Suari's jaw tightened. "Of course, consort."
Yisaoh squeezed Luna's hand. "That's all the protection I can offer you, my word."
"When the ways between are closed… there won't be any more death? No more war?"
"I am weary of war. So is Kirana. We want to raise our family, Luna, as anyone else would."
Luna gazed at where Tasia played in the outer hall, munching on a biscuit as she set her dolls to the task of finding a missing dog, or some such.
Ze nodded, once, not to Yisaoh, but in the direction of Tasia. Then, to Suari, "I will tell the Empress what I know. But only her."
"I understand," Suari said. He glanced at Yisaoh. "I will have her wait in a guest room, until the Empress returns."
Yisaoh inclined her head.
Luna trusted no one. Relied on nothing. But ze had leapt before, and would leap again.
"If I do this – I want to be free, Yisaoh."
"I know. So do I, Luna. So do I."
"What the fuck is it?" Kirana demanded, raising her spyglass to her eye and gazing out over the plateau, toward the massive mountain that had fallen from the sky.
"We've already gotten birds back, and a runner," said Madah, her intelligence officer and a former line commander. "It's not a mountain, it's some kind of boat."
The spyglass gave Kirana a clearer view of the outline of the great shape that marred the horizon. There certainly was something… organic about it. Something alive, as if some great gnarl-skinned monster slumbered out there in the woods.
"Is the stronghold intact?"
"Much of it was crushed," Madah said. "What wasn't crushed shattered in the aftershocks. The temples have held, though."
"Fuck," Kirana said. She took the spyglass from her eye. "Gaiso had charge of that hold. We had thousands of soldiers and sixteen jistas under her there."
"There are still damage reports coming in from the settlements. There… could be some survivors?"
"Fuck! Suari! Where's my wink?"
"Still working on it," Suari called.
"Oma's being fickle," Kirana said, handing the spyglass back to Madah. "Take Mysa Joasta with you and ride out there. I want an in-person report. You may get there before Oma allows Mysa to make a connection again. Bloody fucking satellite."
"Yes, Kai." Madah bowed and hurried across the Assembly Chamber.
Kirana took a deep, calming breath and settled her mind. Tucked away thoughts of Yisaoh and that Dhai girl. Yisaoh could handle the girl, no doubt, but Kirana hated to be cut off from her family. The uncertainty would eat her alive if she stopped to think too hard over it. She went back to her room and spent some time in meditation, clearing her mind. Emotional decisions could wreck them. She needed clarity.
Once her mind calmed, she went to her office and dug through the notes of the accounts her people had gathered from the Saiduan archives about the last rising of Oma and had one of the servants bring them into the Assembly Chamber.
Suari called, "I have Oma again."
As he did, a wink opened just above the Assembly Chamber table. Madah and Mysa peered through. Behind them was the great organic hulk; this close the skin of it was visible, a burnt, scaly black flaking at the edges. It was so enormous it towered outside the frame of the wink.
"Empress, we have a significant force here," Madah said. "They are wounded, shocked, asking for safe harbor. But it's… large."
Kirana jutted a finger at Suari. "Take these two and go retrieve that girl from Yisaoh. Right now!"
Suari opened a wink on the other side of the room.
Kirana fixed her attention back on Madah. "How many?"
"Best guess, several thousand are still alive. Maybe more, once the wounded and dead are sorted."
"They have a leader?"
"Yes, it's one of the near-worlds we've caught scouts from."
"Kalinda? Aradan?"
"No, it's our favorite one. Gian."
"Fuck. I should have known. She was the most stubborn. Any idea how many jistas she has?"
"No, but if you recall, she had those fighting bears."
"I do. Let's hope they're dead. How did we miss her building that monstrous ark?"
"I think she'll deal, Empress," Madah said. "They are worse off than… uh, they are unwell. Food reserves at near zero. This was a desperate act. I think her people will parley."
Kirana knew what Madah had nearly said: "They are worse off than us." She grimaced. She had two options, here: pick them off now, one by one, while they were weak and newly arrived, or work out some deal with Gian so they could align themselves against the other incoming worlds.
"We'll need to know if this is a single event," Kirana said, "or if she's expecting more. Madah, you have authority to call in as many troops as you need. Tell Monshara I need two of her companies."
"Yes, Empress."
From the corner of her eye, Kirana saw Suari return from the other side, escorting Luna with him. Kirana let out a breath, unaware she had been holding one.
Kirana waved at Mysa to end the connection. The wink closed. She rounded on Suari.
"How did Mysa snag Oma's breath before you did?"
Suari stiffened, hand still on Luna's arm. "I don't know. It's highly individualized. Perhaps her position–"
Kirana was keenly aware of witnesses to their discussion, and kept her voice low. "She was clearly still in the temple. Yet she was able to bring herself and Madah there, investigate, and open a wink back here before you even felt it return."
Suari raised his voice. "This one has something to tell you, Empress. Something that will please you." He released Luna.
Kirana noted that in the hour the ataisa had been gone, someone had clearly washed and combed out hir hair, and probably eaten something, based on the renewed vigor in the eyes.
"I met your consort," Luna croaked.
"You did. And did she explain our troubles?"
"I'll tell you," Luna whispered. "But then you let me go."
"When my scholars confirm what you've told me is true, yes."
"So I can go, when I give you this? That's what Yisaoh said. She said you wouldn't harm me. She gave her word."
"Well, I wouldn't want to make my consort a liar."
Luna nodded.
Kirana snapped her fingers at Rimey. "Go get the scholars from downstairs. Have them bring the book."
Rimey ran off to the stairs.
"Will you eat something?" Kirana asked.
Luna nodded.
Kirana called for tea; she wasn't going to waste bread and butter on this one.
Luna sipped the tea as they waited for the scholars to come up. Ze would not look at Kirana.
"You met my wife? My daughter?" Kirana asked.
Luna nodded.
"How is Tasia?"
"She seems well," Luna murmured.
Kirana leaned back in her chair. Perhaps she should not ruin whatever spell Yisaoh had cast on this one.
The scholars arrived, breathing heavily, their coats whirling behind them; Orhin in the lead, face bunched up as if he smelled something terrible; Himsa just behind him, trying to match his great stride; and Talahina, shoulders hunched, eyes big, gaze darting all about the chamber. Kirana had never invited them this far up into the temple before. Talahina held the book, and set it onto the table in front of Kirana.
"Show them," Kirana told Luna, pushing the book at hir. And, thinking of her mother, and Yisaoh's endless patience, added, "Please."
Orhin carefully leaned over and opened the page to the section with the temple diagrams. "We know these symbols here correspond with the type of jista."
Luna's fingers trembled as ze put hir fingers to the diagram. "This explains the machines," she said.
"We gathered that," Orhin said. "We need the key for the language. The diagrams – we can puzzle that out once we have the key. You do… have the key?"
Luna met Kirana's look again. "She promised."
"She did," Kirana said. "I do not make promises I can't keep."
Luna pulled a piece of green paper from inside the book and began to write out a series of symbols. "This is the Kai cipher," Luna said.
"We are familiar," Orhin said, "But that doesn't–"
Luna shook hir head. "It isn't a straight translation. That was the trick of it. Roh understood that." Luna's eyes filled. Some other dead Dhai in Saiduan, most likely. "It reads from left to right, not right to left."
"Oma's breath," Talahina swore, "how did I miss that?"
"It's not that simple," Orhin sputtered. "The Kai cipher was considered and discarded! It was nonsense in relation to this text."
"You can work out the title, here," Luna said, "like this." Luna dutifully translated the title of the book, showing the scholars in detail how ze did it using the cipher.
Kirana leaned back, hands behind her head.
Orhin said, "We'll get to work on this immediately, Empress. All three of us. We'll call in help, also, so we can–"
"Excellent," Kirana said. "Luna, we'll need you here a few more days, in case they have questions."
"Yes," Luna said, softly.
Kirana called over one of her guards. "Take this one back to one of our nicer suites, will you? And ensure it gets something to eat."
When Luna was gone, Kirana addressed her babbling scholars, all of them crowing over the book.
"You're a year behind!" Kirana yelled, and pounded her fist on the table.
They quieted.
"Get back down there and get this done," Kirana hissed.
They bowed and hurried off, so quickly they forgot the book. Kirana grabbed the book and threw it across the room. It rattled the far windows, but did not break them.
"Fuck!" Kirana yelled.
Luna knew hir fate when ze gazed upon Kirana's triumphant face. Though the guards took hir to one of the nicer rooms three floors below where they kept their political prisoners, Luna was still aware of hir status. Luna would only be fed and clothed and tolerated until the book was fully deciphered. After that? Kirana would not keep her promise. It wasn't her promise, after all.
Luna waited for a guard to return with hir meal. Despite it being a better room, ze still tripped on a loose stone in the floor, barely covered over with a rug.
Ze sat meekly at the end of the bed as the guard entered. A young woman, not much older than Luna, truth be told. Luna could not look into her face. Instead, ze held out hir hands for the bowl and eating sticks.
As Luna's left hand gripped the bowl, ze took hold of the eating sticks with hir right, and leapt at the guard.
Luna jammed them into the guard's eye. She screamed and clutched at her face. Luna lunged and picked up the loose stone from the floor. Turned before the guard had recovered, and bludgeoned her head with the rock. She went down, but Luna needed to make sure she stayed down. Luna hit her a second time, a third.
Luna fumbled with the keys on the bludgeoned woman's keyring. Ze darted into the hall, closed the door behind hir, and tucked the rock into hir pocket. Ze went casually to the main stairwell. Two jistas were coming up from below.
Wasn't there another set of steps? One less obvious? Luna cast about for a doorway. There. Six steps down. Luna breathed slowly, carefully, taking the steps without hurry. Hir hand met the door. Ze pushed inward, and came into a tight, narrow corridor. The servants' stair.
Luna went down another flight of steps, then risked going out into another hallway. Yisaoh had dressed Luna in a plain gray tunic and trousers, which was similar enough to what the other servants wore for hir to slip among them without too much trouble. Luna spied a girl dressed much as ze was, pulling soiled bedding from a guest room. Luna waited until the girl's back was turned and then scooped up the discarded towels from outside the door.
Ze still had the keys with hir, and the stone. As ze came to the main floor, hir breath quickened. Hir hands shook. A dozen servants and various officials and soldiers still moved about the space, many of them heading to the banquet hall for the evening meal.
Luna passed into the foyer. Dusk had fallen. Flame flies droned lazily in lanterns set into niches in the walls. Ze went quietly to the great front doors opposite the grand staircase. The doors were closed. One soldier sat on a stool there, dozing with his head against the wall.
Ze steeled hirself and padded to the sally port set in the larger gate. It was locked. Of course. Luna dared not try the keys; ze doubted the guards would have keys to the main gate anyway. Instead, Luna crossed to the banquet room on the other side of the doors. Voices came from the far end, in what must have been the kitchen area.
Windows lined much of the wall that faced the plateau. Luna set down the towels on a table. Ze went to the windows and worked at the latch of one of them. It popped open, about as wide as hir arm from wrist to elbow. Luna did not have time to hesitate. Ze pulled hirself up onto the windowsill and sucked in what remained of hir stomach and pressed through the gap.
Luna had always been a small person, but the body that housed hir before imprisonment would not have fit. As Luna huffed and puffed out the window, ze realized a year of starving and wasting away in the cell below was all that had made this possible.
Halfway through, Luna got stuck, and considered breaking the glass. The voices from the kitchen grew louder. Luna let out hir breath in a rush and gave one final push.
Luna landed in the garden and crawled quickly through the gardens to the stone bridge that crossed the gaping chasm between the temple and the plateau. Ze stayed away from the lighted path, stepping softly among the flowers and shrubs instead.
The bridge, too, had guards. Two on this side and two on the other; there was a wall around this front garden that had not been there the year before. Luna's heart sank. Ze knew this was the only way off the plateau, as ze had noted all the ways in and out when ze had first arrived.
Luna took the stone from hir pocket and threw it into the bushes on the other side, hoping to call the guards' attention, but neither was bothered. The ones on this side were engaged in conversation, too low for Luna to make out. Maybe they would be relieved soon? Maybe they would go to have a meal and ze could get out when they changed the guard?
To have come all this way and get stuck and captured again when they discovered Luna among the other Dhai slaves was too much to bear.
Luna got up and stepped boldly onto the path. The stones poked at Luna's feet, but on ze went, striding confidently up to the guards. All Luna had left was the confidence of knowing that ze had survived a year in this place, and hir whole life in Saiduan, while these people tried to murder hir. That confidence was enough to make the walk.
The guards saw Luna and ceased their chatter. Fear tangled in Luna's guts, but this was the only chance Luna had, to face them directly. Luna could not spend another night in this cursed temple, waiting on Kirana's whim. Luna approached them holding the set of keys in hir hands, like a totem.
One of the soldiers peered at Luna. The other stepped closer to see what Luna proffered.
"Where did you find these?" the soldier asked, in Tai Mora.
Luna waited until the guard's hands were on the keys. Then Luna ducked between the two guards, kicking up gravel as ze went.
"Hey, now!" the soldier yelled, alerting the two on the other side.
Luna was terribly weak, but not as weak as ze had been a few hours before. The two other soldiers moved into Luna's path, blocking hir from the other side.
With a great burst of energy, Luna jumped onto the railing and propelled hirself forward, balancing dangerously on the supports. The Fire River churned below, a great black snake of death. Luna pitched forward onto the plateau on the other side, narrowly missing the grasping fingers of one of the soldiers.
Luna ran blindly, not knowing at all where ze was going. Following the path would mean following the light, so ze abruptly turned away from heading down into the little settlement on the plateau and instead headed out to the east. The soldiers were in pursuit. They were faster than Luna. They would make up the time in mere moments.
Ze changed direction abruptly and ran up the edge of the plateau, following its long curve as hir body broke out in a cold sweat.
Luna bolted across the plateau, as quickly as hir exhausted, wasted legs would take hir. Ahead, Luna saw the breadth of everpines and verdant bamboo carpeting the hills on the other side of the ravine that split the plateau. How far were those hills… an age, an impossible distance, maybe fifty yards? Maybe more. Luna wanted a miracle. Luna wanted to be free, one way or another, wanted to be able to fly across the ravine and land in those beautiful, lush bamboo.
Ze wanted freedom more than anything else. The guards were coming. They would end hir. Luna's feet tangled in the long grass. Ze had a moment at the very edge of the plateau, two steps, in which ze could turn back.
Instead, Luna jumped, hurling hirself into the great black abyss where the Fire River yawned below to embrace hir.
Finally, Luna thought.
Finally, free.
|
(Worldbreaker Saga 3) The Broken Heavens
|
Kameron Hurley
|
[
"fantasy",
"LGBT",
"science fiction fantasy"
] |
[] |
Chapter 13
|
Lilia found Caisa already washed and refreshed, drinking weak tea in one of the small guest quarters in the eastern quadrant of the warren.
"I'd like you to get word to Elaiko," Lilia said, "in Tira's Temple."
"Of course," Caisa said. "It's only a few days' ride from here. What do you want to tell her?"
"Can you send a bird? It needs to be faster."
"I can… That's trickier, but yes. What's going on?"
"I need Elaiko to help myself and two others get inside Tira's Temple. To the basements, those rooms the Tai Mora have uncovered."
Caisa's face lost a little color. "You can't be serious Li. That's… they are well guarded. The passwords change daily. The–"
"I want to see it for myself."
"It's safer for me to find someone who can go down there," Caisa said. "My contact in Oma's temple has unprecedented access. They can easily–"
"I need to see it," Lilia said. "I know that sounds mad, but…" Taigan had been so sure Lilia was a worldbreaker, that she had some gift that would help them all. Was she getting caught back up in that story? Or did she simply hate the idea of leaving the potential power of the temples in the hands of the Tai Mora? "Meyna wants to leave Dhai. If we abandon the temples to the–"
"Leave Dhai?" Caisa said. "That's… No! Not after all we've fought for."
Lilia leaned forward. "I don't want that, Caisa, but to convince Meyna there's a future here, I need more than diagrams and vague stories from the Tai Mora. I want to see how this works. I want to know if we can somehow wrest this power back from the Tai Mora."
"I… I don't know, Li."
"Caisa? If we leave, then your year of sacrifice and intelligence is all for naught."
Caisa twisted her hands in her lap. "I'll see what I can do," she said. "Three of you?"
"Just three," Lilia said. "In and out."
"I'll try," Caisa said. "I can get word there and something worked out with Elaiko in a few days, perhaps."
"Could we do it any faster?"
"How fast?"
"Two days. The sooner the better."
"Why the urgency?"
Lilia hesitated. Caisa would learn soon enough, she supposed. "A man has come into camp. He says he is Ahkio."
Caisa clapped her hand over her mouth. "Impossible! He was dead!"
"He may still be. We don't know it's truly him."
"I could… I was close to him for some time, I could–"
"Meyna has taken him aside. Whatever happens with him is up to her and Yisaoh. You understand?"
"Ah, I see."
"Thank you, Caisa."
"Do you think I could see him? The Kai?"
"You could try," Lilia said. "I assume Meyna will be keeping him close."
Caisa stood and wiped her hands on her trousers. "Does this mean your plan to attack the Tai Mora camp during Tira's Festival is… on hold?"
"It depends," Lilia said.
"On what?"
"On what I find out when I visit the temple of Tira."
Ahkio sat across from Meyna in an underground room lit with flame fly lanterns, hands tucked under his arms. Liaro sat to his left, and that was a comfort. It was not so long ago that Ahkio could not keep his own thoughts straight. Simple words still eluded him, sometimes. Liaro had taught him to put on a tunic and heat water for tea. There was a time, after he had fled the temple and begun wandering the foothills around Mount Ahya, that he had forgotten his own name. What a blessing that had been. Truly a gift from Oma.
Meyna looked much the same as he remembered her; the heart-shaped face, the full lips, the only-slightly-less-generous proportions. Even knowing what he did, with all the history between them, he had a strong desire to press himself into her arms and seek comfort. Old habits were difficult to shake.
Her family sat in the next room; Rhin and Hadaoh, Mey-mey, and the new child, Hasao, the one she insisted was his, and he had no reason to doubt it. She looked startlingly like him, much more so than Mey-mey ever had.
"You could have pretended to like me more," Meyna said, sipping at her tea and wincing at the heat. "I'm doing both of you a great favor."
"And we appreciate it," Liaro said quickly. "It went well, don't you think?"
"It did," Meyna said, but her gaze remained on Ahkio, intense and calculating. "How do you feel, Ahkio? Rumors are moving through the camp that you are here. We'll announce it formally, but I wanted to have a private discussion first, since it's mostly been Liaro and I speaking about this alliance. I need your backing now, the way I've given you mine."
"I'm real," Ahkio said, resenting her assumptions, as if he did not deserve to be here with his own people. "Don't think you're doing a deal with some other version of me. I haven't spoken a dishonest word to you, or Liaro, or any of them."
"I assume nothing," Meyna said. "But our purposes are aligned. If I'm to convince all of these people to board these ships I have acquired and head south, to a new home, I need someone they have faith in."
"I didn't realize the scullery girl, Lilia, had so much power here," Ahkio said.
"Not power," Meyna said, "but… influence. She has been throwing herself and her cult into this mad dance with the Tai Mora for months now. I've heard she plans on a major offensive, during Tira's Festival. No doubt she'll end up getting herself and her followers killed if she follows through with that. After, there will be a place in their hearts here that needs filling. That is where I see you."
Ahkio glanced over at Liaro, who patted his knee, a comforting gesture. Yes, Ahkio needed it, though it pained him to admit it. He wanted to leap out of his seat and run. Why had he come back? He could have wandered the woods indefinitely, after learning what had happened. Murdered by Nasaka's hand, the temple fallen, his people scattered. It was too much.
Ahkio squeezed Liaro's hand. "I just want peace," Ahkio said. "That's all I ever wanted."
"So do I," Meyna said. "Moving our people to a new homeland will achieve that. Will you support that?"
"What other options are there?"
Meyna curled a lip and tried her tea again, sipping carefully. "Lilia wants revenge. She wants to fight. And she doesn't care how many of us her crusade takes down with her."
"The Tai Mora will follow you," Ahkio said softly. "They can find us anywhere."
"They are too busy with their temples and stargazers."
"They will follow you," Ahkio said. "They won't rest until we're destroyed."
"It isn't about that," Meyna said. "Once their world died, they stopped murdering us. Mostly they enslave us."
"Then why are they hunting you here?" Liaro asked. "We ran into several patrols."
"Because Lilia is striking back at them," Meyna said. "She has her people go on little raids sometimes, breaking up supply trains, that sort of thing. We are a nuisance."
Ahkio was uncertain if Meyna truly believed that, or if she knew the more likely reason that the Tai Mora kept coming after the Dhai refugees. Ahkio knew all too well what Kirana wanted, because he had refused to give it to her: Yisaoh Alais Garika. And his refusal had led them here.
Liaro must have seen something in his face, because he said, quickly, "We'll certainly be less of a target when we're gone, then. Ahkio?"
"Yes," Ahkio said.
"Good." Meyna stood. "You've already seen your rooms, but would you like an escort back? We'll come for you when the meeting begins."
"We're fine," Liaro said. He took Ahkio's arm.
Ahkio followed him, head bent, knowing he was a bit like a cowed dog and not caring about the optics of it.
When they left Meyna's rooms, Liaro said, "Let's walk. Get some air. Fewer people above ground. And all this dirt makes me claustrophobic."
They went through the narrow halls of the underground refuge and up the ladders to the misty woodland above. A few people passed them, but none Ahkio recognized, for which he was grateful. So many had died, and so many of these were younger people. Few from the temples had escaped, he gathered. Most had either been killed or put into service for the Tai Mora.
Above ground, a few children played near a great bonsa tree. They ducked away when they saw Ahkio and Liaro; clearly they were not supposed to be up here alone. The scent of a few cook fires teased the air.
When it was clear they would not be overheard, Ahkio said, "They will follow us. Kirana won't stop until she has Yisaoh."
"That wasn't a part of this," Liaro said. "We never discussed that. I told you, leave this to us. You're still… fragile."
Ahkio rubbed his eyes. He wanted to deny that, but Liaro was right. Liaro had seen him at his worst, but still believed in him, more than any of the others. Certainly, Meyna thought Ahkio was some shadow. And maybe… maybe he was? Ahkio was so confused most days it would not have surprised him to discover it.
A soft rumble made the ground tremble, shaking moisture from the trees and spattering them in cold droplets.
Liaro wiped the damp from Ahkio's face. "I love you, you know," Liaro said.
"I know," Ahkio said. "Is that enough, though?"
"You were given a gift from the temple. You got another chance to live. Let's not waste it. Meyna has all of this in hand. I know you two have a contentious history, but they love her here. She knows the Woodland, and though you may not remember it, you did choose her child to be Li Kai. This will set things right. We just need to keep our heads down."
The soil rumbled again.
"What is that?" Ahkio asked.
A clanging bell sounded, high and urgent.
"Walking trees?" Liaro said. "We should get below ground."
As they turned, a great roar filled the woodlands around them. Ahkio froze. Great, lashing vines appeared through the tree cover, their creepers wrapping around tree trunks and tensing – pulling – something forward that moaned and crashed through the woods.
Liaro took him by the arm and yanked him toward the entrance to the tunnels. But Ahkio turned back to where the children had ducked off.
"They aren't safe!" Ahkio said, yanking his arm away. He ran across the muddy ground. Liaro yelled after him, but Ahkio could already see the five children breaking cover, running for them.
"This way!" Ahkio said.
The ground heaved again, and one of the children fell. Ahkio scooped him up and took up the rear of the group.
A seething mass of tangled, fleshy vegetation rumbled toward them, yanking itself along with its tendrils. A half-dozen more, smaller but still as wide as Ahkio was tall, rolled behind it, lashing at the understory of the trees, snapping small branches and tattering the great plate-sized leaves of the bonsa trees.
Liaro made it to the entrance of the settlement and helped the first three children down. He ducked into the hole just as one of the fleshy mounds rolled over it, blocking the others.
"This way!" Ahkio yelled to the remaining children. He set down the one he carried and pulled his weapon. Whatever kind of sentient monster this was, they could bleed. They could be killed. He had fought enough of them to know.
The clanging bell sounded again, a different rhythm this time.
Ahkio slashed at the groping tendrils as the massive sphere of vegetation roiled toward him, seeking purchase on his body to propel itself forward.
"Stay out of its way!" a cry from above, a lean young woman with a mop of hair, sliding down from a tree roost with several others. "Grab the children!" she said to her companions, and drew her bonsa sword as she raced toward Ahkio.
Ahkio knew her face; the freckled cheeks and prominent forehead she was still trying to cover with a fringe of hair. He felt some relief, on seeing her. Caisa Arianao Raona, his former assistant, once a Tai Mora – how many knew that? But he felt such joy on seeing her: a familiar figure, one he had fought beside before. The tension in his belly eased, even as the creepers snapped at his legs.
Caisa stopped just short of him, alarmed at the sight of his face, but recovered quickly and put her back to his, weapon raised. "Move around them!" she called, and began heading out of the plants' paths.
They slipped into the narrow strip between the paths of two of the large sphere, slashing and hacking at the tendrils if they came close.
Her companions snatched up the two remaining children and took cover behind a massive bonsa tree.
The roiling forms of the seething beasts rumbled away, lashing and snapping. Ahkio sliced one more heavy tendril before the things cleared the camp.
Ahkio huffed out a breath.
"Tumbleterrors," Caisa said, wiping sticky sap from her weapon and sheathing it. She came around and peered at him. "It's you?"
He nodded. "I thought you were dead," he said.
"Same," she said. "Meyna saw you die."
"It's a very long story."
As the trembling ceased beneath their feet, a few heads popped out from the various underground entrances to the settlement. Along the edges of the paths the tumbleterrors had cleared, a few more fighters stood, weapons out. Many were already making their way toward him.
"The rumors are true!" Caisa called to them. "The Kai is alive!"
There were a few gasps. People began to clamor out of the settlement and gather around him, pressing close, though not close enough to touch him without consent. They marveled at him. He noted all the young people bearing white ribbons in their hair and around their throat.
The bubbling conversation drew more and more people, until Meyna finally eased her way through the crowd to him, calling, "Yes, it's true! It's all true! The Kai has returned to lead us to our new home! There will be a meeting tonight, in the gathering hall, at dusk. We will share our vision with you!"
Ahkio gazed across the crowd and saw Yisaoh staring at him, her hands covered in sticky violet sap and plant matter, face spattered in dirt. When she saw him looking, she gave a little smirk, and put thumb to forehead, mocking.
He winced. He could not stomach Meyna's politicking. He cast his thoughts again to Yisaoh. Kirana would hunt them all to the ends of the world until she was dead. Despair welled up. He had failed at so much. All he wanted to do was save his people. He just wanted to make it right.
But to make it right, he would have to do a grave wrong.
Ahkio shuddered. He was going to start sobbing again. He feared he would not be able to stop.
|
(Worldbreaker Saga 3) The Broken Heavens
|
Kameron Hurley
|
[
"fantasy",
"LGBT",
"science fiction fantasy"
] |
[] |
Chapter 14
|
Roh wept at the sight of Asona Harbor. He wept again when he found out Taigan was alive, and that even such a powerful sanisi would join with the Tai Mora. What had Roh been fighting for all this time? Why had he fought so hard to get here, when everything was falling apart?
It had been more than two years since he had leapt onto a ship to Saiduan with his fellow Dhai scholars, looking forward to living a more exciting, less ordinary life.
He had found that life.
The trip down the Saiduan continent with Keeper Dasai, Dasai's secretary Nahinsa, and their retinue, had taken far longer than he had anticipated when he begged them to take him back to Dhai to meet with the Empress. As a sort of magistrate for Caisau, Dasai had business to conduct, and his tall secretary with the lopsided face was equal parts lover, bodyguard, and contract writer.
Much of the business the Tai Mora did here at the end of the great war was dealing in food and human labor. One of those human chattel was Roh. He survived because he knew the Kai cipher, he insisted he was a relation of the Kai, and – most importantly – because Dasai knew that the man who shared Roh's face in their world was already dead. There was no reason to kill Roh to save one of their people.
They traveled by cart through the old gates of Asona Harbor. Its teardown was nearly complete. Roh sat in the back of the cart with the other chattel – scaly chickens, three young boars, and piles of animal skins, silks, and rice destined for Oma's Temple. He viewed the landscape with his gangly legs with their shattered knees hanging over the edge.
From this vantage point he saw the world pass him by after it was already behind him, and after a while he didn't want to look anymore.
His joy at seeing home again did not last.
Perhaps he should have known what was in store when Taigan laughed at him in the bathhouse on the harbor.
The clan squares of Dhai had been burned out. The lift lines cut. The orchards were twisted wrecks. The fire that had pillaged the world the year before had been thorough, and routed much of the toxic plant life between the clans as well. He saw the mangled shapes of dead walking trees, first one and two and then whole families of them.
Wildlife had been caught in the routing as well; bones peeked through blooming spring wildflowers. Not all of the bones were animal, either. From a distance, he saw human skulls. While the Tai Mora had been busy trying to till the ground, and beat back the encroaching new growth, they had not had time to dispose of all the Dhai bodies. Around Kuallina, Roh saw heaped mounds of soil where he knew the bodies of his people had been buried. They had not been eaten or burned, but buried like fertilizer. Thousands and thousands of them.
Industrious groups of Tai Mora and their slaves were shoring up roads, clearing away toxic plants from new fields, tilling reddish soil, and tearing out old, fire-ruined orchards to make way for grape vines.
These changes were sad, almost expected, but not striking. The change that made him gape was far more permanent and unexpected. As they came up the top of the low hills outside Asona, he caught a glimpse of a great black mountain protruding from the center of the country. If he had to guess, he would say it lay near the Kuallina stronghold.
"What is that?" Roh asked Dasai, though he knew better than to speak unless spoken to.
Dasai ignored his outburst, but when he gazed at the great mountain, his mouth firmed.
They stopped at a wayhouse outside Kuallina where the tavern keeper regaled Dasai and Nahinsa with the story of Kuallina's fall to fire during Sina's rise, and the Kai's retreat to Oma's Temple, where he was chopped to pieces by his own people and thrown in the sewer dregs.
"It's said they fished him out, after," the tavern keeper said, making a two-fingered sign that Roh had learned was a ward against the ire of the gods, to the Tai Mora. "Then they ate him," he said. "Those barbarous Dhai." This last was said without a hint of irony.
"What of that black mountain?" Dasai asked. "We've heard rumor of a great upset here."
The tavern keeper lowered her voice. "It fell from the sky."
"Invaders?" Nahinsa asked. "An army?"
"No one's sure," the tavern keeper said. "Flattened the stronghold there, though, and made a great crater. Rocked the whole country like a terrible earthquake when it landed. Some of it got cut off, you can see, when the worlds came back together. Oma knows how big the whole thing was."
Nahinsa knit her brows. "But how could a mountain–"
"It's no mountain," the tavern keeper said. "It's a living thing. A boat of some kind."
"From the sky?" said Dasai, incredulous.
"Wild worlds out there," the tavern keeper said.
That night, Roh lay on a straw mattress at the foot of Dasai's bed, clasping his hands together, pretending it was not his own hand he grasped, but that of some good friend or lover, someone who could keep him safe. He took comfort in that. The world had changed irreparably, but he wanted to turn it all back. The creature in Caisau had told him he needed to come to Dhai, but when would it be too late? All those conversations felt like dreams, now, the hallucinations of a boy battered and beaten.
What would happen when he arrived at the temple? The creature said he could talk to Oma's Temple when he got there, but what if he couldn't? And what would he have to say to Kirana, this mirror Kirana, the terrible shadow version of the Kai he had known before Ahkio? He closed his eyes and tried to remember her face, but it was all so long ago that all he remembered was the rough sound of her voice.
She had been a very weak tirajista, and he had once watched her coax a vine from between two stones when he was very, very young and Tira was ascendant. He could not remember her face, but he clearly saw the beaded dew on the vine, the little granules of soil as it twirled up and up into the air, the gods made real.
Two days later, they finally reached the Temple of Oma. On the edge of the plateau, which had once been nothing but amber-colored grass, the Tai Mora had constructed a fortified town.
As Roh entered the village, wondering whom they housed here, he saw the familiar chitinous armor of the Tai Mora soldiers. Among the soldiers were the support people, the dog-minders and launderers and cooks and doctors. Roh passed a doctor's tent where a yowling woman was having a poisonous angler thorn, big as a tree branch, yanked from her leg. Roh had never seen anyone survive the sting of an angler bush when Tira was descendant, but with so many satellites in the sky perhaps she had a chance. He wondered if the Tai Mora tirajistas had some song they could use to heal that hurt, or if they had no idea that the woman's life would be over in an hour without treatment.
He expected their presence to rouse curiosity, but no one paid them any mind. Dasai had been someone up north, but he seemed unknown among these people. Many of these soldiers bore little resemblance to the Tai Mora or the Dhai. They were a mix of different peoples who had clearly come from a broad range of far-flung places across the other world. Some bore elaborate tattoos, others had piercings and dyed henna hair, or wore their hair in spiky locks, or slicked against their scalps with white paste or violet clay. They were tall, short, lean, with faces that were long or broad, foreheads peaked or flat, low or tall. He realized he compared the people of every other country based on how like or different they were to the Dhai. Dhai was normal to him, and these people were very different. Perhaps, now, he was the different one. This was the new world.
Roh noted the few surviving Dhai among the camp. He knew them by the tattoos on their necks, like his, and the cut of their gray clothes. They had not yet learned not to meet each other's gazes. Roh still saw defiance in their faces. Where had his gone?
"Here we are," Dasai said, as a soldier raised a hand to slow their cart.
Nahinsa explained their purpose to the soldier, and gestured to the cart of goods.
"You'll want to see the quartermaster," the soldier said, and waved them on through a fortified gate and into a large square. Here there was a courtyard of beaten dirt and several tents and hastily erected cabins. One was clearly a kennel, with spaces for bears and dogs separated. A blacksmith tended a forge, aided by a tirajista who worked at panels that had the gleam of Tai Mora armor.
Dasai ordered Roh to wait with the cart while he and Nahinsa went inside to meet the quartermaster. Roh bided his time, singing an old parajista song softly under his breath.
"Rohinmey?"
Roh started, nearly falling off the cart. He jerked around to face the woman who had spoken. She was a lean woman with a big frame, wide in the hips and shoulders. Her plump mouth was pursed, and a wrinkled line appeared between her brows as she regarded him. He guessed she was ten years his senior, and she bore the neck tattoo and plain gray clothes of a fellow Dhai. Her thick mane of black hair was pulled back under a broad gray scarf.
For a long moment, Roh did not recognize her.
She came to the edge of the cart and leaned toward him. It was her eyes that decided him, large and dark.
"Saronia," he said. She had lost weight; the roundness of her face and figure were gone, replaced by a stark hunger that only emphasized the lines of her face. He knew Saronia was much closer to his age than she looked. She carried a basket in her arms, arms that had long shiny scars: burn marks.
"What are you doing here?" he said, in Dhai, and it was a stupid question. What were any of them doing here? It was Dhai, and they were, still, Dhai.
She shook her head. "Tai Mora," she said, and continued their conversation in Tai Mora, even though she surely spoke too low for anyone else to hear them.
"We all thought you were dead," Saronia said. "All the scholars sent to Saiduan. Was that–"
Roh shook his head. "It's their Dasai, not ours. Ora Dasai… Chali, the others… No."
"I'm sorry," she said. "It was like that here. We thought Ora Nasaka would protect us, but she just opened the gates! We didn't know what to do. They killed anyone who protested. Stacks of bodies, Roh, so many bodies. You have no–"
"I have an idea," Roh said. He nearly placed his hand over hers, and stopped himself.
She caught his look, and looped his hand in hers. "It's all right," she said, "I consent."
"I'm sorry," Roh said. He looked around to see if anyone was paying them mind. A soldier at the door of the quartermaster's office was watching them carefully.
Roh got down from the cart, painfully, and helped her pick up the basket. It was full of dirty laundry, and when she'd dropped it, various pieces of soiled linen had fallen in the mud.
"I'm so glad to see you, Roh," Saronia said as he helped her refill the basket. They had not been friends, in the temple. Saronia was from Clan Garika, and she had been a terrible bully.
From the corner of his eye, Roh saw Dasai leaving the quartermaster's office.
"You should go," Roh said. "Let's not draw more attention."
She raised her head, and did not quite look at Dasai, but she clearly noted his presence. She took up the basket and hustled past Roh without sparing a glance back.
Dasai got up into the cart, staring after Saronia. "Who is that one?" Dasai asked. "Someone you know?"
"From a long time ago," Roh said.
"Come now. The Empress has agreed to see us."
The various guards and additional slaves in Dasai's retinue stayed on the plateau while he, Roh, and Nahinsa were escorted across the natural stone bridge that connected the plateau with the small crag of land that bore the weight of Oma's Temple. Roh limped along painfully, conscious of how different his gait was coming back into the temple than leaving it. He followed the height of the temple, up and up, to the familiar glint of the dome. The Tai Mora had torn down the fenced webbing that protected the temple from the plateau and had completely rebuilt the old stone walls. Inside the walls, much of the front gardens would lie in shade. Roh shivered as he crossed through them to the temple door, which was barred.
Roh had never known a time when the doors to the temple were locked.
They entered the temple proper, ushered by the sinajistas, who unwarded doors as they went. The temple bustled with slaves, liveried servants, guards, jistas, and specialists of all sorts. Roh was overwhelmed by the heat and noise of the place. It had never been this busy; Oma's Temple was no longer a place of study, but one of war and conquest and rebuilding. He lingered behind as his party entered the foyer, and pressed his hands to the wall next to the door.
"Beast?" he murmured.
Nothing. Only the subtle warmth of the walls, which he had felt his whole life. Had Caisau been a dream? Had he come all this way for nothing? He racked his memory for some sign, some key piece of information the creature had given him. The creature on the plateau will know you. Step into her circle and the map will unfold. You are the map now. You are the Guide.
"Rohinmey!"
Roh started, and hurried after Dasai.
The sinajistas began up the great stairwell. Roh balked. Broke out in a cold sweat. "Keeper Dasai, I cannot. My–" he could not say, "My legs," and choked on the words. But he gestured.
"Could you carry him?" Dasai asked one of the sinajistas.
She made a face. "Certainly not."
"You, there!" Dasai called to a big man sitting next to a lean, petite woman on a bench in the foyer. "Can you help my boy up the stairs? Just a few flights."
The big man rose. He was not tall, Roh saw now, just broad. His scraggly black hair and beard needed a wash and comb; he had the blunt features and stocky build of a Tordinian. He hunched a little as he walked over to them, right arm tucked against his torso. His right hand was missing. The clothes he wore were the simple cut of a servant. Someone had clearly dressed him recently.
The man said something, most likely in Tordinian. Roh didn't speak it, but many Tordinians knew some Dorinah. His gaze was flat and black.
"Please, Father," Roh said in Dorinah. "Will you help me up the stairs?"
"My dogs," the man said, in mangled Dorinah – or, that's what Roh thought he said. "You have? My dogs?" He seemed to be looking at something just over Roh's left shoulder. "Ah, ah," he said. "Your ghosts!"
"He's addled," Roh said to Dasai.
The little woman next to the man got up, peeked around the man; Roh saw she had the beginnings of a beard. She was pale as a Dorinah, and looked as exhausted as the man. She grabbed the man's good arm and said, in Dorinah, "We are waiting for someone."
"Could he take me up the stairs?" Roh asked, but before she could respond, the man was already moving, very quickly.
Roh scrambled back, but the man scooped him up and hefted Roh over his shoulder. Roh let out a squeal.
"Good, then." Dasai waved at them to continue up.
The way was deeply uncomfortable. Roh kept losing his breath. "Ghosts?" Roh wheezed.
"See you," the man said. "Patron slayer."
Roh froze like a captured rabbit. Who was this man?
The little bearded woman came after them, heaving herself up each step, daintily tugging at her belled trousers as she went.
When they got to the top Roh asked to be put down, and the man – surprisingly – obeyed.
They stood just outside the open door to the Assembly Chamber. The sinajistas announced them.
The Empress stood at the Kai's seat at the great circular table of the chamber, one foot on the chair, pointing at two travel-worn visitors Roh took to be soldiers. Behind her were two slaves, waiting on her whim, and several jistas and councilors of some kind.
Roh expected her to look much more like the Kirana he had known during his time in the temples. But this woman was wiry, with a harder mouth and flat, intense eyes. No glimmer of mirth or mercy there.
She did not acknowledge them for a full minute as she continued speaking to the soldiers. "I thought I had Daorian murder all their jistas. How did this one escape, Monshara?"
The woman soldier, Monshara, said, "He was unknown to them at the time. Natanial, tell her of–"
"It's good he did escape," the lean man, Natanial, said. "You'll need him for the end."
"But Saradyn? Ghosts?" Kirana rolled her eyes.
"It's complicated," Natanial continued, "you should see–"
At the name Saradyn, the man who had carried Roh grunted and yelled something in Tordinian. The sinajistas surged forward, but the soldier inside turned, and called them back.
"No! Leave him. Saradyn isn't terribly dangerous anymore." Natanial crossed over to the big man, Saradyn, and took him by the elbow. Presented him to the Empress.
"Where is she from?" Natanial asked, in Dorinah, pointing at the Empress.
"No ghosts," Saradyn said.
"An easy guess," Kirana said. She gestured across the room, to Roh. "And him, the boy, there? Does he have ghosts?"
Saradyn let out a great guffaw. "So many ghosts!"
Kirana folded her arms. "I'll test him, then. He only sees these… ghosts from people of this world? That's how he determines who is from this world and who is not? What is a ghost?"
"I have no idea," Natanial said, "but yes, he'll know instantly if someone is impersonating one of your people."
"A fine gift. We've been sweeping the temple for spies for the last six months, and still have leaks."
Natanial bowed stiffly.
Kirana waved him away. "Take the jista downstairs. Is that her?"
"Him," Natanial said. He gestured at the bearded woman – man – who had followed them up. "This is Anavha."
"I don't need to speak to him," Kirana said, lip curled. "Just keep him here. Suari?"
One of the jistas behind her came forward. "Get this omajista warded and bound."
"Wait," Natanial said, "warded?"
"Of course. Every jista working in this temple is bound to me. Monshara, get him a drink. Take that Saradyn man with you. I'll send someone into the foyer to collect you and get you settled. You!" One of the servants from the back came forward. "Escort them to the eating hall."
The servant led the group away: Natanial, clearly still unhappy, and Saradyn, babbling. Natanial said something to Anavha as Suari advanced, something low in Dorinah that Roh couldn't quite catch, as Kirana bellowed for Dasai to enter.
Roh hurried after Dasai and Nahinsa.
"Keeper Dasai," Kirana said, "you took your time getting here."
"It did not occur to me how quickly things were moving," Dasai said, "until the last few months. I've brought this boy with me, a relation to the old Kai. He knows the old Kai cipher."
Kirana smirked. She pulled her leg from the seat of the chair and sighed. "The Kai fucking cipher. You're a little late on that. We already have the Kai cipher! We wheedled it out of some little Dhai washed up from Saiduan. And we're reading it correctly, now. We don't need your boy."
Roh felt his face flush. Who else would know the Kai cipher? "There's a book!" Roh blurted. "A guide to breaking the world. I–"
"Quiet!" Dasai demanded. He raised his hand.
Roh shrank away, but Kirana waved Dasai off. "We have the book," Kirana said. "The Dhai child brought it to us."
"Luna?" Roh breathed.
Kirana peered at him with greater interest. "You knew that ataisa?"
"But have you translated the book?" Roh continued. Was Luna still here? he wondered. "Have your people memorized it already? Because I have. I know what it says. I know how to close the ways between the worlds, so no more mountains fall from the sky, so no one else will threaten your sovereignty."
"She already told us–"
"Luna told you the cipher," Roh insisted. "But I translated and memorized the whole book. How much time do you have, Empress? Enough time for them to translate the whole book?"
Kirana moved to the other end of the table. She picked an open book from near a stack of others and slid it over to him.
Roh approached the table. As he did, he noted its great circular shape, and the old mosaic map of Dhai peeking from beneath the scattered papers and writing instruments and various cups and jista concoctions. He had never paid much attention to the floor here, but he did so now. A great ring of the temple's exposed flesh circled the floor beneath the table, inlaid with blue and green mosaic tiles along the border.
Step into her circle.
Roh stepped onto the ring of the floor, pressing himself against the table to manage it, and took hold of the book. He paged to the end of it, pointed to the complicated diagrams, the Worldbreaker there at the center of the diagram.
"You need a key," he said, "a worldbreaker, and a guide."
"I am Kai. Surely that's good for something."
Roh shook his head. "Not here. Not to these temples. The temples are the beasts, living things. They have long memories. They remember who the Kai really is. And honestly, the Kai doesn't have much to do with controlling the mechanism, unless they are gifted, or take on the role of the Worldbreaker."
"Then I will burn the temples the fuck down."
Roh felt the floor beneath him soften.
"Then you will be burning a long time," he said, and he felt himself sinking, dissolving, and he smiled for the first time in many, many months.
The temple swallowed him into a comforting black embrace.
My Guide. You have come home.
Roh felt weightless. So much darkness. He could not speak. But he heard the creature thrumming in his bones.
Oh dear, it said. You have come alone. You need the Key and the Worldbreaker. I cannot take you to the People's Temple without them. Come back with them when Para is risen.
Wait, wait! Roh wanted to shout, to explain, but the creature went silent.
And Roh stumbled from the darkness – and into light.
|
(Worldbreaker Saga 3) The Broken Heavens
|
Kameron Hurley
|
[
"fantasy",
"LGBT",
"science fiction fantasy"
] |
[] |
Chapter 15
|
"There are tumbleterrors out there," Emlee said. "You haven't forgotten them? They've had sightings ever since the funeral."
"I haven't forgotten," Lilia said as she packed her things. She had endured nearly three days of waiting while Caisa worked with her contacts inside Tira's Temple to plan an infiltration. Ahkio's heroics with the tumbleterrors had sent the camp into an uproar. In some ways, that was good. It meant fewer people paying attention to Lilia and her supporters. Meyna kept Ahkio very close; he was never alone, always with either Meyna or Liaro. Lilia had a terrible feeling about all of it; a knot of dread had formed in her stomach, and she had not slept well.
Harina and Mihina had already gone off to gather those who had agreed to join this particular mission. It had been a popular one, among her people. Everyone wanted the chance to ride and work beside Lilia.
"There's one thing I need before I go," Lilia said. Emlee must have seen something in her face, because she recoiled.
"That bit of Hasao's blood I asked you for."
Emlee firmed her mouth.
"You must trust me, Emlee. I could bring the whole child, but I'm not. That blood I asked you for yesterday is all I need. Ahkio said the temple responded to him. It recognized him as Kai. If Hasao is recognized as Kai by the temple, I may be able to understand or access something in Tira's Temple that the Tai Mora have not."
"There is always one more thing you need."
"Emlee."
"You ask too much."
"I will take it myself, then."
The box in the corner rattled again. LIlia shivered. It had been doing that more often the last few days, but she dared not open it. Kalinda hadn't told her to open it, and she was honestly beginning to fear what might be inside.
Emlee frowned at the box. "You should cast that into the sea."
"Let it alone," Lilia said. "The blood? Do I need to get it?"
"No, you are terrible with children. And Meyna will murder you if you approach her."
"Tasia and Namia–"
"They are hardly children. None of the children here have been allowed that. They grow into useful appendages for you, too quickly."
"Will you help or not, Emlee?"
Emlee turned out her kit of vials and potions and took out a small jar usually filled with balm. "There's not much," Emlee said. "It was a routine check I did on the child, and Rhin was close the whole time. Had to say she slipped. She was not happy about it, and nor was Meyna, later."
Lilia stuffed the jar into her pack. "Thank you, Emlee."
"Whatever you're searching for, I hope you find it," Emlee said.
When Harina and Mihina returned, Lilia joined them, and Namia followed. But Tasia, alerted from the front room, ran after her.
"Where are you going, Mother Lilia?"
"Hush, I have an errand. I'll be back in a few days."
"Namia is going! Why can't I go?"
"It may be dangerous."
"Then it's dangerous for Namia too."
"She's older than you."
"I'm just as tough."
Lilia stroked the girl's hair from her face. "I know. But I need someone to look after Emlee. Can you do that for me?"
Tasia pushed out her chest. "I know you're just saying that because you don't want me to go."
Lilia considered how many times her own mother had told her that, and she had completely believed her. Simpler times. "You know I'll come back."
"Everyone says that, but it isn't true."
Lilia could not kneel, as it would be painful. But she bent low and kissed the girl's forehead. "I know it isn't fair," Lilia said, "but you must stay with the others and hide, like a snapping violet."
It was only as Lilia turned away and shuffled down the corridor with Namia, Tasia snuffling behind them, that Lilia realized those were the last words her own mother had said to her before she lost her forever.
But Lilia did not look back. She could not look back anymore. Only forward.
She made her way through the underground camp with Namia, sticking to little-used passages. They went through the emergency route, the long, snaking tunnel that came up in a great stand of willowthorn trees well out of sight of the aboveground staging area.
The other two members of the group waited there: Avosta, arms folded, chest puffed out, and Salifa, who had the drawn look of someone who had either recently vomited or was going to very soon.
"Let's proceed," Lilia said as Avosta passed over the lead of a lean dog for her to ride. Dogs were faster than bears, though bears tended to do better in the woodland. Lilia needed speed, now.
"We go southeast," Lilia said, "following the Fire River, to Tira's temple. Everyone is comfortable with the plan?"
A few nods. Avosta's was the most enthusiastic.
"I'm just… I'm still worried about you going," Salifa said.
"Then it's a good thing you are coming with me," Lilia said. "I promise you, we will blend in. No one will notice us. Those temples are crowded."
"And warded, though," Salifa said.
"Elaiko, and her people there, will take care of that," Lilia said. "Trust that we have worked this out, Salifa."
Salifa gave a little nod. "It's just an awful lot of Tira's power I'm going to have to draw. It could alert them."
"It's far enough away from the temple proper," Lilia said. "Elaiko tested it. Come, now, Salifa. We are going to do a very brave thing."
They camped that night just above the Fire River in a wet glade that smelled of everpine and loamy soil. Lilia slept fitfully, and woke even more tired than the day before. A break in the trees let her sit and gaze at Oma, blinking there in the sunrise, its sister satellites glowing just as brightly.
"Are you all right?" Avosta asked. He had the last watch of the evening, and came over to her from his perch at the edge of camp. A snarl of vines caught at his boot, and he used a small knife to pry it off before it tried to sink its hungry tendrils through his boot and into his flesh.
"Just trouble sleeping," Lilia said. She pointed at Oma. "What if someone told you that the satellites used to be one thing. One object? And it was split apart?"
"I would say that whatever did that was very powerful."
"Where would such a thing have come from?"
Avosta shrugged his large shoulders. "Perhaps it was constructed by jistas. Or by the gods, by Oma itself."
"Oma creating itself?"
"People create other people, don't they?"
Lilia hugged her knees to her chest. "I like puzzles," she said. "The sky is the biggest puzzle of all, though, isn't it?"
"I don't think about it much," Avosta said. "There's no point in agonizing over something you can't control."
"I'd like to control it," Lilia said. "I'd like to have control over far more than I do."
"You have an impact on many of us," Avosta said softly.
Lilia leaned away from him and struggled to her feet, leaning on her walking stick. Namia, beside her, wiggled in her sleep and let out a soft sigh. "Thank you for coming, Avosta," Lilia said. "I know it's a very dangerous endeavor."
"So is being alive," he said.
Salifa woke and yawned. "You two are very loud," she said. "Let's eat."
When the party had eaten and struck camp, they continued on through the woodland, following an old game trail littered with dozens of different species of carnivorous plants. Biting hydraflowers and snaplillies sought out their flesh; the bears flicked their enormous forked tongues and ate the furious flora as they went on.
Lilia knew they were near to the temple when she saw a swarm of dragonflies moving parallel to them; the cloud was so large that the light dazzled Lilia's eyes, reflected from their many wings.
She paused to watch them, entranced.
The ground rumbled. Lilia tensed. Insects dropped from the trees and pattered to the forest floor.
"What was–" Salifa began as they halted their dogs.
A great cracking sound filled the sky. It echoed across the woodland. Startled birds took to the air.
When the trees stilled, Lilia let out of her breath. The dragonfly swarm broke apart and flew higher into the canopy until they were lost from view.
"An earthquake?" Avosta murmured.
The bears snarled and snuffled.
"I don't know," Lilia said, casting her gaze to the treetops that hid the sky. "They don't usually make sounds do they?"
"I don't like this," Salifa said.
Mihina and Harina shared a look, and rolled their eyes.
"Let's keep on," Lilia said. "We're close." If the heavens fell on them, she didn't want to be caught sitting here gawking. She would rather die doing something.
Tira's Temple came into view through a startling break in the trees. A slant of sunlight blinded Lilia briefly. She squinted and raised her hand. Perched atop a cliff in the river valley below, the temple appeared to bloom from a snarl of rock wrapped in flowering vines and great sprays of early spring petals. The temple proper was immune from the encroaching woodland. The green-black fist of the temple shimmered. Its foundation spanned two branches of the river, and water gushed mightily beneath it. The gardens around the temple teemed with life – delicate green shoots and gnarled branches fuzzy with new growth. Unlike Oma's Temple, there was no army camped here, though some force had burned out a great deal of the woodland along the main road that led into the Dhai valley, and had clearly been camping on a blistered black patch of ground not long before.
"I heard it fell quickly," Avosta said, bringing his dog up beside Lilia's. His greasy hair lay knotted against his scalp. "Most of the Oras were called to Kuallina," he continued, rubbing absently at his pocked face. "It's said Elder Ora Soruza and a handful of novices were all they left to defend it."
"A terrible business."
"Did you live in Tira's Temple?" he asked. The others were still coming up the low hill. Salifa was singing to the biting bugs, teasing little carnivorous plants into snapping up the pesky insects.
"No," Lilia said, "just Oma's Temple."
"Did you have people there you cared about?"
Lilia shifted uncomfortably. It could be an innocent question, but Avosta always tried to get too close. "A few, yes."
"I lost many," he said. "Was there… a lover?"
Here it is, Lilia thought. She turned over her answer carefully. "Once," she said. "Her name was Gian." Both of them were Gian, she wanted to add, but that would overly complicate things, and he would want more answers. It had been some time since she said Gian's name aloud.
"Did she perish?"
"Yes," Lilia said. "I… made a mistake. A miscalculation. She suffered for it. I live with that each day."
"I'm sorry," he said.
Lilia waved biting insects away from her face. She turned in her seat to see how close the others were. Nearly there. "In any case," she said, quickly, "they kept a few of the drudges and jistas, but warded them."
Avosta grimaced. "Dirty people."
"They are," Lilia said.
"Well, show me where the crossing is," Salifa said.
"We need to distract the Tai Mora patrols first," Lilia said. "Namia is going to round up the patrols. Mihina, you'll be waiting above that valley choke, there, as we discussed." She pointed to a narrow way between two steep hills just below them. "When the patrols are cornered there, you'll set a fire behind them, trapping them in the valley. Harina, you will accompany Avosta and me up into the temple."
"And Namia? How is she going to escape those patrols once she gets them into the choke?" Harina asked.
"Namia will go up that tree," Lilia pointed to a tangle of vines around a slender sapling. "With all their armor on, they won't be able to follow. Namia and I went through this with Caisa the day before we left. She knows what's expected."
Namia signed at her, "Death."
"Hush," Lilia said, rubbing her shoulder, "not yours."
"They will see you are gifted, Lilia," Avosta said. "You and Harina. They can spot jistas immediately."
"It's all right," Lilia said. "There's a way to mark us as gifted, but warded to the Empress. Salifa, you'll need to train a vine up across the river that carries us up the back side of the temple."
"I got that," Salifa said. "Just show me where. I'm going to need to focus Tira's breath at the base, make it harder for anyone inside to notice it."
"Good," Lilia said. "Once we are in the garden, Elaiko or one of her people will have proper clothes. We will change and proceed to the belly of the temple."
"You're certain of this contact?" Harina said, exchanging a look with Mihina, who shrugged.
"As certain as I am of all of you," Lilia said. "Elaiko has been providing us with information from Tira's Temple for months now. Salifa, I'll want you to maintain your position at the base of the cliff. We'll need your help to go back out that same way."
"What if I'm found?"
"My hope is they'll be concentrating on the fires that Mihina will be manipulating out here in the woods," Lilia said. "If they aren't, do your best to maintain the vines and save yourself. We'll slide our way down if we have to."
Lilia said, "Namia will start rounding them up now. She knows to bring them here once the evening snaplillies open and release their scent. That's when we will begin our climb, so we need to be in position before then."
"This requires a lot of luck," Salifa said.
"Not at all," Lilia said, "it just requires all of us to follow the steps exactly. No mistakes."
Lilia told her mount to sit, and reached out to hug Namia. "You'll do well," Lilia told her.
Namia signed, "Victory."
"That's right," Lilia said.
Namia scampered off through the trees, her form looking small and frail against the monstrous trees and massive tangled vines and shrubs.
"Good luck," Lilia said to Mihina. "Remember, you want to draw the patrols, but don't burn down the wood."
"I'm ready," Mihina said. "I was going to be the one to do far worse to the Tai Mora during Tira's Festival, remember?"
"You may, still," Lilia said. She urged her bear back up and pointed toward the sound of the river. "Let's keep on. It's getting hot."
Avosta kept pace with her, and Harina followed with Salifa at the very back, the four of them keeping to a single-file line in an attempt to disguise their numbers. They stopped twice at the sound of patrols in the far distance, and kept low and silent until they passed.
As they came down the rocky ridge that descended to the rear of the temple, Lilia had them tie-off and muzzle the bears. Going down the steep trail was hard on Lilia's leg, so Avosta carried her. She did not complain. She had a very long way to go yet, and tiring herself out this early wasn't going to help any of them.
Dusk helped mask their approach. Lilia caught the smell of the snaplilies before the others. She hoped Namia did, too.
A gushing branch of the Fire River separated them from the cliff on which Tira's Temple perched. Salifa kicked the rocks and muddy tendrils around them.
"It's going to be very obvious," Salifa said, squinting across the river in the dying light. "Anyone who looks down will see a great tangled vine bridge."
"Our hope is they don't look down," Lilia said.
Salifa chewed her lip. "Lots of hope seems to be required in this entire plan. Li, are you sure–"
"I'm sure," Lilia said. "For me, Salifa. Please. I need to see what they have uncovered. I must see it myself."
Salifa sighed. The air thickened. She closed her eyes.
All around them, tremulous new shoots sprang from the soil. They tangled together and began moving across the water, growing thicker and darker as they met the cliff on the other side and began to tease their way up.
"Start across now," Salifa said, gaze intent on her creation. "I'm going to lower it into the water behind you to mask it. Lilia, here, take hold."
Lilia grabbed the leafy tine of the vine with her good hand. It wrapped around her waist and over one shoulder and scooped her up, out and over the bridge. Lilia let out a little gasp. The others were snarled up into the plant's arms behind her. Lilia was passed from one tendril to another across the whole span of the blue-black water. The plant dumped her into the mud on the other side. She lost her breath a moment, and worked hard to regain control of her breathing. She lifted her head, and stared up and up at the vast distance they still had to travel up the side of the cliff.
Avosta and Harina arrived, and they began the ascent as the bridge of vines behind them sank just beneath the water. The curling tendrils along the cliff clung to their arms and waists and legs, offering handholds and braces, and a little bit of extra help to climb.
Still, Lilia was gasping by the time she was halfway, and had to stop to take a swig from a mahuan-laced water bulb at her hip.
The others slowed to wait for her, but she waved them onward. It was almost full dark now. The lights of the temple were a beacon.
Lilia knew she was close when the lights from above finally illuminated her handholds as the gentle insistence of the vines continued to propel her upward.
Avosta, already at the top with the others, held out his hand and pulled her up the rest of the way. Lilia leaned against him, trying to catch her breath.
A great bone fence, twice as high as they were tall, confronted them.
"What now?" said Harina. A slight drizzle began to fall. Lilia worried about the rain and the fire that Mihina needed to keep kindled, but an overcast sky would further protect their approach and escape.
Lilia wished for Namia up here, in the dark, as Lilia's night vision was not excellent. Namia could have guided them by sound and smell alone.
"We should see a break in the fence here," Lilia said. "Let's look for it."
They tramped around in the dirt until Harina found a broken, out-of-place bone that they could push out of the way.
"I'll go first," Avosta said. When he indicated it was clear, the rest of them followed.
Lilia led them through a great maze of bones to a long-dead bone tree at the center. Lilia had been to Tira's Temple only a few times, but Elaiko had given good directions. The paths were lit with blue phosphorescent lichen that sent up little puffs of spores as they trod across them.
At the base of the dead bone tree, a little Dhai woman Lilia recognized as Elaiko stood hunched, seeking shelter from the rain. Elaiko hugged her arms to her chest. When she caught sight of Lilia, she darted forward. Like the other Dhai who had been made slaves, she wore some kind of collar, and drab gray clothes, like a scullery drudge.
"You're here?" Elaiko whispered. "All of you? I could only get three outfits. Only two collars. Oh, wait, there are fewer of you than I expected."
Lilia frowned. "Yes, we had to leave very quickly. Avosta, stay here and guard our retreat. Harina, you'll come with me."
"I'm Elaiko," the woman said, by way of greeting, to the others. "I'd so love to offer you tea, but the circumstances–"
"That's quite all right," Lilia said, as she began to shed her clothes. The cold bit into her bare skin. She rucked on the too-big drudge clothes, already damp, as quickly as she could.
"I should go with you," Avosta said.
"We need that break in the fence kept clear," Lilia said. She did not look at him, but was keenly aware that he was staring at her as she dressed.
"Quickly, quickly," Elaiko said.
Lilia didn't hear anything, but Elaiko kept looking toward the temple. "Is everything in place?" Lilia asked.
"Yes," Elaiko said, "but you must put on the collars, quickly."
Lilia handed one of the collars to Harina, and took the other herself.
Harina wrinkled her nose, but she took the collar. "These aren't live, are they?"
"No, no," Elaiko said. "That isn't how the wards work. The wards that keep us from injuring the Tai Mora… those are written into our skin. These are simply a marker that it's been done. A shorthand, you could say. If you attract no attention, they will look away, assuming you are warded."
Dressed and collared, the little party started off after Elaiko. "Go back to the fence!" Lilia called to Avosta. He hesitated another moment, but finally complied. She let out a sigh of relief. She needed their love, yes, but more than that, she needed their faith and their loyalty. Love was more fickle than faith. It worried her that Avosta might love her more than he feared her.
Elaiko led them through the bone tree maze and into the rear temple garden. Here, the way was lit with flame fly lanterns. They came inside through the kitchens. The heat and noise assailed them; the drudges were preparing the evening meal. Rice and tender spring shoots, and meat – the smell of the meat made Lilia recoil a little. What animal were they cooking? The Tai Mora love of flesh outside the funerary still disgusted her. They went in pairs, Elaiko and Harina up front, and Lilia behind.
A passing cook yelled at Elaiko, "She wants tea upstairs! Where have you been?"
Elaiko started. Froze. Babbled, "Yes, of course," and went for the tea tray on the big table at the center of the kitchen. Harina lingered with Elaiko. Lilia did not want them going in groups larger than two.
Lilia kept walking, and Harina came with her. The temple layouts were all virtually the same, but she had gone over a rough map of this temple's interior provided by those in the camp who had been there. She was confident she could wait for Elaiko in the foyer if they ducked into the scullery stair. They needed to pick up laundry, and it was a good place to rest and get a sense of their bearings.
Lilia stepped up into the foyer and headed right, passing under a low arch and into the scullery stair. The mouth of the laundry staging area lay open; all the drudges brought laundry from the levels above here, where another set of drudges were usually tasked with bringing it to the proper laundry facility in the basements.
Two drudges were already inside, dropping off laundry. They nodded as they headed out, but one narrowed her eyes, clearly suspicious that she had not seen them before.
Lilia went to the back of the room where it was darker. She shifted a load of laundry toward Harina as she entered. "Let's get ready."
But just as he cleared the threshold, a dark figure blotted the light. A Tai Mora soldier blocked their path. Pointed at Harina. "You, there. Come with me!"
Lilia froze. She needed a very quick story.
Harina, though, was already moving, so fast Lilia did not catch the flash of the knife, though she saw the blood immediately. Harina bumped into the Tai Mora and whirled him around, so now the Tai Mora stood in the laundry room. It was a solid hit that could still have been construed as accidental.
"My apologies, so sorry," Harina said, wiping at the Tai Mora's shoulder, a sleeve. The Tai Mora pushed her away, still so flustered that he was oblivious to the blood pumping onto the floor.
Lilia became alarmed at the amount of blood. She backed up against the bundles of dirty laundry along the rear wall.
"Out of my way!" the Tai Mora insisted, but then Elaiko was there, with the tea, her mouth a wide O.
The Tai Mora slipped in his own blood and went over. He became aware of the pump of blood. His eyes widened. He gasped. But he was already bleeding out. Even as he pressed at the pumping wound, he was going into shock.
"Stay out of the blood!" Lilia hissed at Harina, but it was too late. She was on her knees, holding the Tai Mora down. Blood soaked through her trousers and smeared her hands. A few drops peppered her face.
Lilia hefted what was left of the laundry bag with her good hand and gingerly stepped across the piles of blood-soaked laundry.
Harina became aware of her own bloody clothing. "Sina's maw," she muttered.
"You can't go out like that!" Elaiko said, gaze darting back into the hall. "Quickly! Someone else is coming."
"Stay here," Lilia said, low. "Clean up. Change your clothes. You know where we're going. Follow us."
Harina grimaced, but nodded.
Lilia went into the corridor with Elaiko and closed the door to the laundry closet, leaving Harina with the body.
"If anyone walks in–" Elaiko said.
"I know," Lilia said. "We must keep moving. Ah, your shoes!"
Elaiko made a little peeping sound. Lilia handed her a towel from her bag, and Elaiko scrubbed at her bloody shoes.
Elaiko hissed something. Lilia turned just in time to see two more drudges heading toward them, up the scullery stair. Lilia moved out of their way. The two gave them an interested look, but kept moving.
Elaiko bustled out of the scullery stair and into the foyer. Lilia hurried after her as fast as her limp would take her. The basement doors had a single guard, who opened it to them after asking the day's password. When the door closed behind them, Lilia murmured, "They change the passwords every day?"
"Yes," Elaiko said. Her hands trembled so hard the teacups on the tray rattled. "All the temples now, at the Empress's command. You can't get down here without the daily password. There's been a great deal of activity. Are you… are you sure we can–"
"Courage," Lilia said.
Elaiko pursed her mouth and said nothing. The teacups still rattled.
Lilia dropped the laundry off inside the steamy laundry bay on the first basement level, then continued after Elaiko to the second set of doors.
"Here," Elaiko said, gesturing to an open storage room. "Stay here until I call. There's never more than one person bringing tea. Only authorized people here."
"Still your trembling," Lilia said. "It will be all right. Try not to look at them." Lilia wanted to add, "Because you will give it away!" but did not. Elaiko was already too shaken. What if they didn't drink the tea? If they needed violence here, Lilia would have to turn back. She did not think she had the strength in her one good hand to injure, let alone kill, anyone.
Lilia ducked into the storeroom. But she could not help but peek out and watch Elaiko taking the last long walk to the two guards at the second set of doors. Elaiko offered up the tea tray to the two guards. One gestured at her to set it on the pedestal near them. Elaiko set it down, clanking and trembling only a little, and started back down the hall. She met Lilia's look.
Lilia turned back to the storeroom. She looked through the barrels and boxes until she found the plain burlap bag that Caisa had Elaiko smuggle in the day before. Lilia was relieved to find it. She opened it and dug through the tubers until she found all three of the plain, shelled hazelnuts at the bottom of the bag. She stuffed them into her pockets.
Elaiko met her there and shut the door. She let out her breath, and began to cry. Lilia did not know how to react. She made a comforting noise, but stopped when Elaiko continued to sob.
"It will be all right," Lilia said.
"No, it won't! What have I done?"
Lilia recognized it, then, but still had no time for it. Elaiko had never committed violence before.
"Maybe they won't drink it?" Elaiko said.
"You need to hush."
"What if they drink it?"
"That was the plan."
"I have to–"
Lilia could not help it. She grabbed Elaiko's sleeve. "No. We stick to the plan."
The clatter of teacups. Someone swearing. A cry.
Lilia held Elaiko's sleeve and met her look, daring her to try to pull herself away.
A thump and crash in the hall. Elaiko finally slipped from her grasp and went to go and see what had happened. Lilia limped after her.
The guards lay heaped upon one another. Broken teacups and poisoned tea lay spilled all around them.
Lilia grabbed the keys from the belt of the nearest one, who was still moaning and retching. Doors in the temples were not built with locks. This one had been attached to the door by the Tai Mora, a simple padlock. Lilia unlocked it, but the door resisted her.
"It's warded," Elaiko said.
Lilia pulled one of the little hazelnuts from her pocket and shoved it under the door jamb.
"Stand back," Lilia said.
Elaiko moved behind her.
The innocuous looking hazelnuts were fused with a powerful twining of sinajista and tirajista spells. One meant to explode with great force when triggered.
A whisper of power made the air heavy. Lilia's ears popped. She shifted back on one foot, unsure herself of what she would unleash.
A low pop. A thread of searing red light. When Lilia looked back, a quarter of the door had sheared away. Lilia pressed at the door and it swung open. The light from the hall illuminated a short flight of dark stairs.
Lilia pocketed the keys and grabbed the nearest guard. He was heavy. Elaiko just stared at her.
"Help me!" Lilia said.
Elaiko stumbled forward. Together, they pulled the comatose bodies down the short stair and rolled them into an open storage room. These rooms were usually overflowing with barrels of goods, but were now empty; the Tai Mora had far more bellies to feed than the Dhai.
Their movement awoke the flame flies in the lanterns hung just inside the doorway. When the bodies were pushed aside, Lilia took up a lantern and headed further down the corridor to the next set of steps. Elaiko hurried to catch up with her.
"What if they–"
"Keep moving," Lilia said. "One more level. I've seen the temple diagrams."
The next door required only a key. She found the right one and stepped into the cavernous space. No more corridors, just a massive chamber filled with what appeared to be tangled tree roots, great fibrous monstrosities. Lilia swung the lantern toward another source of light coming not from above, but below.
Some industrious force had torn up a great section of the floor, and a soft blue light emitted from the gaping hole.
"How did she even get down here?" Lilia said. "This took them so many months."
"It was terrible," Elaiko whispered. "When they broke through the floor the temple… moaned. And bled! I thought it would fall around us!"
Lilia poked her head through the hole in the floor to confirm there was no one in the chamber below. She handed Elaiko the lantern and climbed down the ladder precariously pushed against the rim of the wound in the floor.
"Come down!" Lilia called. "I need a light."
As Elaiko came down, swinging the light with her because she had two good hands, the great room came into focus.
Lilia gaped.
The chamber was far larger than her descent made it seem. The ceiling stretched far above her, a perfect dome decorated with twining vines and figures that she thought were geometrical until Elaiko raised the lantern. The twining designs were stylized Dhai characters, glistening wetly as if made of something organic. The air here was much warmer than above. The walls themselves pulsed as if alive.
A massive pedestal took up the center of the room, ringed in four more, all skinned like the walls and trembling faintly.
"Well, here it is," Elaiko said. "You wanted to see it. You need to be quick, though. The guard makes rounds again in an hour. We need to be well gone ahead of that."
Lilia placed her hand on the shimmering green walls. Where the Tai Mora had breached the floor, the wound oozed with a gooey amber sap. Lilia sniffed at some of it that had dropped to the floor: tangy everpine and something more fetid, perhaps fungal. She dared not taste it, but the thought occurred to her. She stepped away from the wound and turned, lantern high.
The pedestal at the center of the room glowed an eerie blue-green. Had her light triggered something within it? She approached and gazed at the great round face of it. There, at the center, was the Dhai word for Kai. Was the Kai supposed to stand here to trigger… whatever was supposed to happen? Surely they would only want… But as she rubbed away the dust and dirt, the symbol became clearer. Not Kai, but something far more abstract: a simple circle with two lines through it. Where had she seen that symbol before? Lilia sneezed at the dust. Tira! Yes, it was the symbol for Tira's Temple that she had seen on the mosaic map of Dhai laid into the round table in the Assembly Chamber.
The puzzle drew her. The intricate symbols, the niches, the glowing light: it was a strategy game.
Lilia dug into her pocket. Pulled out the little container of the child Kai's blood. She rubbed again at the Tira symbol at the center of the pedestal, looking for instructions of some kind. Instead: an intricate pattern of raised metal tiles. As she ran her fingers over them, they lit up, bright blue. She moved her fingers the other way, and they lit up, bright green. She tried a few combinations, tapping at the tiles as if they were keys on some instrument. The pattern was easy to recognize. She tapped in the correct sequence her third try, and all the metal tiles sank into the pedestal. The center, too, sank with it, and from beneath each side a shiny device rose. It clacked together: two plates of some substance much like that of the temple walls. The two plates formed a human face devoid of detail, as if stretched from the mold of a newborn babe. Lilia was not entirely sure what to do next.
She pressed her hand to the face.
It glowed green, faintly, then dimmed.
Nothing else happened.
Elaiko made a little startled noise behind her. Lilia glanced back to see the woman already had one hand on the ladder, as if ready to flee. She did not blame her.
Lilia uncapped the canister of coagulated blood, which was now the sticky consistency of thick mud, and rubbed each of her right fingers into it, then smeared some on her palm for good measure.
She pressed her hand to the face.
A brilliant blue light blinded her.
Lilia yelped. Leapt back. Pressed her hands to her face.
A shushing roar, like the opening of a great dam, filled her ears. Elaiko screamed.
Then silence.
Lilia opened her eyes.
The face, fully aware now, animated, the ghostly features dancing across the mold, peered at her. Said something in a language Lilia did not recognize.
"Get away from it!" Elaiko cried.
Lilia waved her away. "Who are you?" Lilia asked the face.
"Who are you?" it countered. The voice did not come from the mold, but from all around them. It made Lilia shiver.
"I…"
The face trembled. The misty countenance blew away, like a cloud in a storm. The rushing of water sounded again, and the face disappeared back into the pedestal, which closed behind it.
"What was–" Elaiko began.
A shimmering form grew out of the pedestal. Lilia took another three steps back until she bumped into Elaiko.
The ghostly specter wore a long flowing robe and had knotted hair tangled with green ribbons and bits of glass or stone. It did not stand on the pedestal, but floated just above it, and the gaze it gave Lilia was glacial.
"Who are you to try and destroy me?" it demanded.
"We weren't," Lilia said. "You are… you're… what are you? A temple keeper? Like… Ti-Li? The woman unstuck in time?"
"I am the creature. The temple keeper is no more. With Oma's rise, the temple keepers were no longer captive here. They were able to escape to their own times. They have left only the creatures, the beasts. I am the Creature of Tira. What are you? You are not Kai, though you have summoned me."
"Just… Lilia. We were here… you know how to stop people coming here? From other worlds? These worlds are all coming here and killing. They are–"
"Oma has risen."
"Yes."
"Why have you injured me?"
Elaiko said, "The Tai Mora broke in here, not us! They're trying to stop others from entering our world. They're going to use you to do it."
"I wanted to speak to you," Lilia said, "to see if it was really true, that the temples were alive."
"Of course we are alive," the creature said. "More so now that Oma is risen. Why are you still tangling with other worlds when you could simply send them back to their world yourselves with the power of the engines?"
Lilia came forward again. "We could… send back the Tai Mora? To their dead world?"
"Of course. All things are possible, if the creatures work together. We could sink the continent, if you willed it. If the Kai… but… No, you are not the Kai."
"No, but I know where she is," Lilia said.
"You can do anything you like," it said, waving a hand. "You could reshape oceans. Break the world. Sear the sky."
"But I don't want to do any of that," Lilia said. "I want to get rid of the Tai Mora."
"And you could do that," the creature said, curling a lip. "But that is far less imaginative than I'd hoped. All they ever want to do is kill."
"How?" Lilia asked.
A great amber light filled the room, bright as daylight. Lilia shielded her eyes.
A roiling mist bubbled up from the floor and slowly formed a massive series of elliptical rings on which rode twinkling orbs of all sizes and types: greens, blues, reds, swirling with orange waves and flaky white patchwork. The orbs moved along the elliptical orbits, all spinning and sparking. It was like a massive orrery, so tremendous that its dimensions clearly exceeded the size of the room. Many of the misty parts ended abruptly in the walls and ceiling.
"When they made us," the creature said, "we broke the worlds apart. This was not their intended purpose, but it was the final result. Infinite worlds. Infinite timelines. So very many choices. Things go wrong in many of these worlds. What none of them understood, then, was that when their worlds began to break, they would feel compelled to come home, to Raisa, here, where it all began."
A misty blue-green orb was faintly visible all around the creature, as if she were standing now inside a soap bubble. "No single person has the power to move and shape the worlds," the creature said. "There are five great machines, our engines. These temples. Each driven by the power of those who can call on each satellite."
"Five?" Lilia said. "The People's Temple? The Tai Mora have dredged it up."
"Yes, the fifth temple was lost to you after the last rising of Oma. The temple of the People. When the other beasts are equipped with the proper bearers of the satellites' powers, the People's Temple will be fully activated. It will have enough power to do… whatever you like. Send all of those from the other worlds back to their own spheres within the orrery, if that is your wish."
"This temple," Lilia said, "the People's Temple. How was it lost in the first place?"
"I can only tell you what your predecessors spoke of in my presence. Faith and Hahko believed the power too great, that using it would corrupt the society they were trying to build, inciting violence and hatreds and powerful rivalries. They believed the cycles should be maintained, that it was not their place to alter them. I suspect this is why they ensured the temple was forgotten."
"Wait," Lilia said. "You're talking about… Faith Ahya? And Hahko? The first Kai?"
"You met Faith Ahya?" Elaiko said. "But… but I have so many questions!"
The creature waved a hand. The misty image of the orrery blew away, curling up like smoke. The white lights dimmed, leaving them under the glowing blue of the creature alone in the dark, musty chamber. "I can tell you only what I know from times before. You have made a mess of everything, cycle after cycle."
"Not this cycle," Lilia said. "We're going to do it properly this time."
"What are you talking about?" Elaiko said. "We have to stop what the Tai Mora are doing here. We have to… I don't know! Burn the temples? Prevent the Tai Mora from getting in? Seal these back up? You heard what it said! They could break whole continents."
"Don't you understand?" Lilia said, turning to her. "We don't have to wait for anyone else to reshape this world, to make things right. We can do it ourselves."
|
(Worldbreaker Saga 3) The Broken Heavens
|
Kameron Hurley
|
[
"fantasy",
"LGBT",
"science fiction fantasy"
] |
[] |
Chapter 16
|
Taigan had seen many strange things in his extended life on this strange world, but the great half-severed ark jutting up from what was once the stronghold of Kuallina was among the most impressive in his memory.
He had meant to make his way directly to Oma's Temple, but he had been close enough to Kuallina on his ride up that when the mountain fell from the sky, the tremors took him from his stolen mount. The terrified creature wisely ran in the opposite direction while Taigan found his footing on the newly buckled turf. That slowed him down considerably.
This far inland, he found more Tai Mora soldiers, including many clearly recruited from countries beyond Tai Mora. That made his journey far easier. He murdered a soldier who was about his height and tugged on the ill-fitting uniform. This let him release his glamor, which had increasingly become an annoyance.
While he still got looks along the road, riding the Tai Mora bear outfitted in the red and purple livery of whatever guard or regiment he was supposed to be from, a simple hazing ward made it more difficult for them to recall him. A neat little trick, the hazing ward. They had the added bonus of being nearly impossible to detect by another jista unless they actively sought it out. That scullery girl's mother had been clever to use it.
The mountain intrigued him. The stir of soldiers around the area drew him in. He left his bear corralled with others and took up a perch in a collapsed heap of bonsa trees to oversee the activity.
The double helix of the suns had begun to set. From where he sat, the suns cast the looming shadow of the mountain over his position. The air cooled quickly as the light was drenched from the world. From this vantage he observed that the mountain was an organic ship of some kind, like those sailed by the Aaldians, but fully enclosed, as if meant to travel underwater – or through the air, he supposed, as this one clearly had. He wondered if omajistas had hurled the thing through the rent in the sky. Creating a tear that large and moving an object of that size would have taken a good deal of power and resourcefulness. And clearly not all of the ark had made it intact. The top of it was shorn neatly, as if the gate had closed too soon behind it.
As he observed the comings and goings of the soldiers setting up the perimeter, he saw a tear open in an area designated for such travel just below. It was staked off by itself, the boundary set with red-painted stones warning others not to tread into the space for fear of being suddenly split apart like the ark.
A woman came through; tall and lean, wide in the shoulders, with a long sloping nose and the dead-eyed stare Taigan had always associated with Maralah. Several soldiers hurried to her side once she cleared the stone circle, including a broad-hipped woman in a long red robe that would have marked her an omajista even if Taigan had not seen the subtle play of the satellite's breath around her. Was this a general of some kind, then? Behind her came a young bearded man; Taigan saw the blooming red mist about him, as well. Another omajista. How many did the Tai Mora have? He half-expected them to keep coming through the tear, one after another after another, but it was just the two: the female general and the male omajista.
Taigan followed their progress as they met with a small delegation under a hastily erected tent. The meeting intrigued him. He slipped from his perch as dusk settled, and kept to the edges of the activity.
As the general and the omajistas moved together toward the ark, flanked by half a dozen soldiers, he followed in the shadows, seamlessly inserting himself into the rear of the retinue. His hazing ward would cause their gazes to flit right over him unless he asserted himself.
They stepped through a massive split in the skin of the structure and into a dim underbelly lit with brilliant green phosphorescent lichens. The glow transformed the group into something otherworldly, which was perhaps appropriate.
The group picked their way through corridors scattered with broken glass and some gooey vital fluid leaking from the broken skin of the great craft. The party came upon two omajistas, one who appeared Dhai, another who could have passed for Saiduan. They wore tattered blue robes smeared with the brownish secretion from the walls. One bore a wrap around her head, which Taigan found odd. An injury? Could they not heal themselves?
"Wait until we announce you," the tall, Saiduan-looking one said. Her accent was Dhai.
The other passed directly through the skin of the craft behind them. The skin seemed to thin to admit her, then thicken again as she passed. Very clever. He liked the cleverness of these people. When she returned, they were admitted. Taigan lingered still at the back of the group, wondering how much longer he could keep up the ruse. The dimness helped.
He crept through just as the door began to thicken again behind the Tai Mora group, and kept to the back of the new room, clinging tightly to the shadows. It was dim in here as well; the only light was the phosphorescent flora lining the tops of the walls and a single flame fly lantern at a table in the center of the room. The room itself had, perhaps, once been grand, before the crash.
The table was partially cracked, and the walls here oozing just like those in the hall. Scattered goods – clothing, weapons – lay stacked against trunks that had burst their locks on impact, or in drawers that popped open despite stops that had clearly been designed for shipboard life.
Six more people waited inside, five of them in boiled leather armor shot through with silver, clearly there to protect the sixth at their center. She was a wiry woman, with her left arm held against her chest in a sling. Taigan noted the hands belied her age: strong hands with slender fingers slashed with fine white scars and discoloration that indicated bare-knuckled fighting. Her dark hair was pulled back from a handsome face which Taigan at once found deeply familiar, though it took him a moment to place her. Something to do with a lip curled at Taigan, as if Taigan were more dangerous than she. It was the same look the woman now turned on Kirana; distaste on the lips, but a hint of fear in the eyes.
Ah, of course, how could he have forgotten that sneer?
"I take it you are Gian?" Kirana said, nodding at the sneering woman, whose face smoothed at being so critically considered.
"Chief Commissar Gianlynn Mursia," the woman corrected. "Only my mother and my consorts call me Gian, and you are neither."
"We have come to know you by the moniker."
"And you are Kirana, the tyrant."
"Empress," Kirana said, "if we are using titles. Kai is also an appropriate title. But come now, you and I are not so different that we should be formal. We want the same things, and we have done much to achieve them. Few other worlds have been as successful as ours, not even this one."
"I heard they fell without a fight," Gian said.
Taigan prickled at that. Saiduan had fought them for years, admirably and honorably. And not so honorably, when the fight called for it.
"Those who remain are pacifists," Kirana said. "But you and I are clearly not. We have both achieved much. Your ark is an incredible feat of engineering. I understand your intentions may be similar to mine. To find a home. To begin again."
Gian watched her.
Kirana continued, "I know you are in a sore place. You would not have agreed to see me, otherwise."
"My people won't be slaves."
"Nor will I ask that of you."
"You're a flesh dealer. A tyrant. There is no compromise with flesh dealers and tyrants. You chose to build an army ten years ago, when the worlds began to fail. You chose to murder and destroy. We chose to build an ark. We chose to save what we loved, not murder an entire world. We are nothing alike."
"There are plenty of places on this world for you," Kirana replied. "You don't need to settle here. What I offer is, perhaps… a truce. We are looking to seal the ways between the worlds. Surely you understand that the more worlds that come after us, the more contentious our settlement here will become. Constant war. Strife. Famine. Famine, especially. But you and I, together, pooling our resources – we can close the ways."
"Impossible. No one's done it. Not during any cycle."
"We have the knowledge. I simply need… a few more jistas. Omajistas, especially."
"You cannot buy them! We are not–"
Kirana held up her hand. "I'm not seeking to buy them. I am, truly, offering you the chance to work together. You can be free of us, after. If you will but… tolerate us, as we will tolerate you, for another month, two at the very most, until Para has risen. You will need that time to recover here, anyhow. If we are to be temporary neighbors, we best work together."
"We are not helpless, you understand. If we must defend ourselves, we will."
"I don't doubt that. And I know you by reputation. We have certainly kept an eye on your people, though we were uncertain what this… monstrosity was for. There are more like you, as you know. Aradan, Kalinda, Sovonia, and those are just the leaders of the worlds closest to us, those who will find it easiest to cross over."
"Kalinda failed," Gian said. "Her people cast her out and dissolved into strife. That is one less."
"That still leaves us the two knowns, and a limitless number of unknowns. My people and yours don't need war. We need to settle here. There is still space, for us. But not for many more of our size."
"What do you offer?"
"Peace," Kirana said, spreading her palms, and Taigan sneered at the sight of it. Peace? "But we have a very short time frame in which to achieve it. And I will be bold: it would assist us greatly to have you as an ally and not a foe."
Taigan was taken aback at that. This was the nation that had destroyed the Saiduan. He remembered the fallow fields he had passed on his journey south, the thin faces. He smirked, then, because he knew precisely their position. They had won the battle, but not the war. The world was still poised to eat them, and he was so terribly thrilled at the idea that, after all this time, they would die of starvation that he could barely contain his mirth.
"We can discuss it," Gian said. "We are not tyrants, so I must consult our people."
"I understand. Until then, my omajistas and tirajistas would be pleased to assist with any injuries."
"That won't be necessary."
"As you wish, however, I–"
"Our gifted are not permitted to harm, or to heal, unless they are protecting themselves or another from certain death."
An awkward silence descended.
Taigan could not help it. He snorted.
Gian whipped round and met his look, steeling him with a gaze that said she clearly saw through his ward. Ah, yes, a parajista, likely – not a powerful one, but one did not have to be powerful to see through hazing wards, if one had the gift for it. His curiosity had made him a bit careless.
"Who are you to judge us?" Gian said.
Taigan sketched a little bow. There was some movement among Kirana's retinue. Kirana narrowed her eyes. In the dim, perhaps, his features were not apparent, but he was tall and dark, and he knew only a few of her people this close to her would be foreigners like him. Taigan waited them out. He could bluff as well as this foreign empress. To admit he was an impostor here, among one she wanted to align with, was to admit her own security was faulty. Taigan merely inclined his head.
Kirana exchanged a look with one of her omajistas. "Yours may not be permitted," she said, shifting her attention back to Gian. "Ours can. The offer is open. I'd like to invite you to a meal, the two of us, perhaps." She indicated the mess around them. "Somewhere outside, in the open air. It's a lovely world."
"I'll send word."
Kirana tipped her chin. "Good." She waved her people out with her, and spared another look at Taigan. Taigan could not help the smirk that crept up his face. He would very much like to murder her, but it was true that she was the only one prepared to close the ways between the worlds. He would just have to deal with another Kirana if she failed, and the mere thought exhausted him.
Taigan did not linger, but followed after them, weaving down the corridor until he found a large crack in the hull. He slipped into it, and waited there in the empty corridor. Wait long enough, and they would forget about him, and hardly recognize his face, foreign as it was among these people.
But even as he prepared to leave the great ship, Gian herself blocked his way back into the hall. Two omajistas stood with her, and another he could guess was a sinajista. The omajistas already had threads of Oma's breath woven into elaborate spells.
Taigan instinctively reached for Oma. The power pulsed beneath his skin. The air grew heavy. He pushed out a defensive litany, the Song of the Proud Wall, and began to shape the Song of Sorrow, a devastating spell no one had yet countered.
The omajistas responded; their casts were not ones he recognized. Something of the Song of the Water Spider, perhaps, twisted with the Song of Unmaking, as if they sought to distract him long enough to cut him from Oma's source.
Taigan wove a defense just as they deployed a second round of casts, these utterly alien to him. His defensive shield burst under the onslaught. He was just fast enough to buffer the blow with a counter spell, but the shockwave heaved him across the corridor and into the next room. He smashed against the oozing wall, widening the weeping wound that glugged essential, sticky fluid over him.
The omajistas pursued. Taigan sliced through the hull with a great burst of Oma's breath and leapt out onto the buckled ground. He spun a glamor as he ran, but realized the threads of his own power would give him away to the omajistas. They could see him if he held a spell. He dropped it and darted into the maze of fallen trees, following the descent of the land to the water below.
He shrugged off his armor, retaining only the linen tunic and trousers beneath, and dove into the water. Taigan might not be able to die, but he was not fond of pain, generally, and these omajistas had spells he had never encountered before. It was entirely possible they could cut him off from Oma and torture him endlessly. He had experienced that a great many times, and did not enjoy that either.
Taigan let himself float down the icy river, keeping his legs ahead of him to cushion his encounters with the rocks. After a time, he rolled over and made for the other side of the river. He was numb, but knew from long experience that his body would combat hypothermia with ease.
The air, too, was cold; early spring was a terrible time to take a dip in a river. He gazed upstream to see if he could make out signs of pursuit, but there was nothing. No threaded tendrils of Oma, no shouts, no figures. He called a touch of Oma's breath and warmed his clothes enough to dry them, then struck out further down the riverbed. Paused.
A noise? A breath. Someone, something, very close.
He drew deeply on Oma, preparing for the Song of the Mountain, an offensive spell instead of defensive.
Taigan twisted on his heel and brought up a great ball of Oma's breath over his head.
"Oh!" a slender boy said, shrinking back into the undergrowth.
The boy seemed familiar, even in the dim light; it took Taigan a moment to realize it wasn't a boy, though it had been years and several genders since he had last seen this little ataisa.
Both he and the ataisa had belonged to Maralah, he through binding, Luna as a piece of property won in a game of chance. It seemed absurd to see the ataisa here in Dhai, after all that had happened, as absurd as seeing some version of Gian fall from the sky in an ark. But surely there would be Saiduan refugees in the south, little clusters of holdouts who had succeeded in fleeing before Anjoliaa was taken?
He saw no tendrils of power around the ataisa, and no other figures.
"You are Luna," Taigan said. "Are you alone?"
Ze nodded, shivering. Taigan noted the damp clothes, and how Luna leaned hard on a great branch ze had taken up as a walking stick.
"You're injured."
"I jumped into the river."
"From where?"
"Oma's Temple."
"That is quite a trip from here."
"I followed the river."
"How did they find you, child?" Taigan asked, genuinely curious.
"I fled from Shoratau."
"Ah, yes. Who else? Roh, that child, he escaped as well. How curious."
"How did… Yes, he did. And Kadaan! He was alive, a year… maybe more, ago. He got me out of Anjoliaa."
"And how have you survived here all this time? You were a slave?"
"I could understand how to power the temples, the beasts that can channel the satellites. And close all these–" Luna gestured behind hir, toward the ark "–seams, you know. Their Empress does not like people just falling out of the sky and taking what she thinks is hers."
"How is it done, then? Powering the beasts? I heard from a little bird that you found the book you sought in Saiduan."
Luna took another step back. "Are you working for them? I should go."
"I work for myself and my own purposes, now. I belong to no one. But you? Where will you go? Saiduan is destroyed. The Tai Mora own the world. The knowledge you have is useless without allies."
"I've already told them all they need to know to figure out how to use the temples to focus the power. They don't need me."
"That makes you terribly expendable. That's hardly a mark in your favor."
Luna frowned. "Some days I wanted to destroy them all, did you know? Maybe we should. Maybe that's better. If we keep doing this again and again…" Luna tilted hir head at him. "I'm tired of being afraid. Aren't you?"
"I trained as a sanisi long before you were born," Taigan said. "I was burned up eighteen times in various attempts to kill me. I have been hacked to pieces twenty-seven times. Maimed and mauled and broken and left for dead more than I can count. I know fear, and I know pain. I fear most that I will never die, that this is my punishment, that the gods doomed me to this for some terrible wrong I committed on some other world. Who is to say? But here is what I know, little Luna, little satellite. Without fear we are the humble herbivores lumbering on the plains. We are a flash of light in the sky. Without fear to drive us we never become what we are meant to be."
"What about love?" Luna said.
"What about love, yes," Taigan said. "Love is the fear of dying alone. That's all."
"That isn't true."
Taigan held open his hands, palms up. "If you are going to run, then run into the woods, Luna," he said. "Run and run until you're eaten by some bone tree or trapped inside a bladder plant. Run for fear of what could be. But that is what the herbivores do. Run and run, until mortality catches them. I chase, Luna. I chase, always."
"These temples, these machines," Luna said, "can do more than just close the ways between worlds. They could decide to use it in many ways. They could decide to destroy not only this world, but millions, trillions, an infinite number of others. If I give you that information, or give it to them, then I am complicit. All I gave them was the code, cipher. The other… well, they won't find out what else it does, besides close the ways between the worlds."
"Why not?"
"I tore out the appendix."
"You… what?"
"When they captured me. I knew they would take the book, once they realized what it was."
"Taigan laughed. "Where is the appendix?"
"Gone, thrown into the sea."
"So no one will ever know?"
Luna hesitated. Ze opened hir mouth as if to say something, and thought better of it. Ze shook her head
Taigan wondered if ze told the truth, or obfuscated to make hir case for freedom stronger.
"I'm going to build some other life with the Dhai," Luna said. "With the appendix gone, well, we're as safe as we'll ever be, I guess. They could still figure out how to break the world, I know. But I did what I could to stop it."
"The Dhai? Why those pacifists?"
"There are still free Dhai, in the woods. I've heard that all along the way here. The Woodland Dhai are free. They have a rebel leader, Faith Ahya reborn. They have evaded the Tai Mora all this time. Maybe they can use what I know. Or not. Maybe they could help hide me."
Taigan felt a twist of… what emotion was it? Surely not hope. "Faith Ahya? A little girl in a white dress, her face covered in scars?"
"I don't know. But she is very powerful. She leads the rebel Dhai in the woods. They wear white ribbons, that's what people say. They are going to take back the country."
"If there is some resistance of Dhai," Taigan said, "perhaps they will be interested in what you know. If the temples truly are the source of power, if they find themselves a worldbreaker, well… we could destroy a good many Tai Mora this way."
"You don't want to help the Dhai!"
"No, I came here to kill Tai Mora, and it seems that could be a possibility if we are the ones wresting control of the temples. Do you know where the Dhai are? The Woodland is dangerous."
"I'll manage."
"I have traversed that wood," Taigan said. "I can help you survive it."
"No tricks. A partnership between the two of us."
"There can be no partnership between a sanisi and another."
"Well, there is now. New world, new rules."
Luna was right, of course, and Taigan did not think hir cowed for a moment. Taigan recognized that having a Dhai-looking companion could get him there among the rebel Dhai to see what they were truly composed of. Perhaps he could trade that information for an audience with the Empress. And though Luna may not tell him or Kirana how to close the seams between the worlds, it was entirely possible Luna would tell the Dhai. And if Luna did, Taigan would be listening.
Living as long as he had, had taught him patience. His only concern, as he gazed at the dying light outside, was that though he had patience, the sky did not. The sky was going to keep moving, and he knew that once Oma left them in twenty years, they would be stuck with whatever new neighbors had muscled their way in over the decades. Time was not quite as infinite as it had been. Oma waited for no one. Least of all him.
"I don't believe you," Luna said.
"I can heal your little leg, Luna. I can dry your clothes. We can indeed be partners."
"Why?"
"I always did prefer the underdog. And there is no dog more under-served than you."
Luna glanced at hir leg, and Taigan knew then that he had hir. Taigan smiled broadly. "Let's go see what the Dhai in the woods are up to. I suspect they will be just as eager to murder the Tai Mora as I am, bless their little pacifist hearts."
|
(Worldbreaker Saga 3) The Broken Heavens
|
Kameron Hurley
|
[
"fantasy",
"LGBT",
"science fiction fantasy"
] |
[] |
Chapter 17
|
A clattering of footsteps above and behind them. The smell of everpine and dust. The temple rumbled around them.
Lilia shivered. Elaiko squeaked.
"Someone is coming!" Elaiko said.
"Yes," the creature said. "I'm afraid our time is limited. You should find the Guide. The Guide can bring you to the People's Temple."
"Who… who is the Guide?" Lilia asked.
"We need to get out!" Elaiko said. "Is there another way out? Can you help us?"
The creature gestured to the walls. "Step through," it said. "I can take you to any other part of this temple. But only the Guide can step from one temple to another."
"Who is the Guide?"
"The Creature of Caisau chose the Guide. The Guide is close. I feel him near. The Key, also."
"But… the Worldbreaker?" Lilia asked, and it came out more desperate than she intended. She had learned to hate that word.
"When the three come together, you will know. The heavens themselves will draw them together."
"But, who–"
"Choose," the creature said, shaking its beribboned head. The image of it stuttered, shifted, purled away and reformed, like a brilliant aurora. "The Worldbreaker is the one who chooses. Anyone can stand at the center and direct the mechanism. 'Worldbreaker' is a poor translation. Better, perhaps, to say the figure who controls the flow of power that is channeled to the People's Temple is a world-shaper. The Worldshaper, once in place, is the one who chooses what to do with all that power. And there are many choices. So very many."
"But…"
A flicker of lanterns cast great shadows from the weeping wound in the ceiling. Raised voices. The air heaved and compressed. Lilia gasped, like breathing underwater. Shouting. The Tai Mora had found the bodies. The heavy air lifted.
"Please!" Elaiko hissed, grabbing Lilia's sleeve.
"Does the Key know what, who it is?" Lilia asked. "Can the Key be anyone?"
"The Key was chosen long ago. The Key will be unique, able to bear the full power of the satellites."
"So the Key isn't the Kai?" Lilia said.
"The Kai can gain you access to the People's Temple," the creature said, "and converse with the temple creatures, as you have done with me. The Kai can gain access to these chambers, yes, without all this… ruination that the interloper has brought." The creature paused, cocking its head as if listening to the patter of feet above them. "I fear your time here is short. You are nearly found. I see it in your face, though, don't I? I see your desire, to shape the world."
"I'm no one," Lilia said.
"None of us are," the creature said.
"Please!" Elaiko cried. "Can you get us out of here? Can you… someone get us to the back gardens? Please, they will kill us!"
"Can you take us… away?" Lilia said. "To the back gardens here in the temple?"
"If that is your wish," the creature said, and gestured to the wall.
"Wait!" Lilia said as Elaiko tugged at her sleeve and the Tai Mora soldiers mounted the ladder above, shouting, the air heavy now, like soup. "How will I find them, the Guide and the Key?"
"They will find you," the creature said. Its image broke apart again. Dimmed.
"Quickly!" Elaiko said, running for the oozing walls. She pressed her hands to the wall, but nothing happened. She wailed. "Oh no!"
"You must go together," the creature said, its voice distant now.
"Take my hand!" Lilia held out her hand, and Elaiko took it.
A shout, from just behind them. The tickle of power; a tendril of Sina or Tira or Oma, seeking to hold them.
Lilia pressed her hand against the skin of the temple. The warm pool of it gave beneath her fingers and sucked her forward. She gasped and held her breath, yanking Elaiko with her.
The moment was nearly instantaneous. Darkness. Warmth. Then she was falling onto cold stones. Elaiko landed on top of her, driving the breath from her body.
Lilia gasped.
A few paces away, a young Dhai man sat on a bench drinking directly from a flagon of mead. He gaped.
"Hush," Elaiko said, waving a finger at him, "or I'll tell them you're stealing."
He continued staring, mouth still open, as Elaiko helped Lilia up. Lilia huffed in a breath, still starving for air. Elaiko was already moving, though, saying, "It's all right if I help you? We must hurry."
Lilia wondered where Elaiko's courage had come from.
"Which way?" Elaiko asked as they came to a branch in the bone labyrinth. "I've gotten turned around! Oh no!" Lilia pointed, and they continued on, Elaiko half-dragging her, until they came to the broken bit of the fence.
Avosta peered out at them. "Lilia!" he called, relief in his voice.
But it was Elaiko who shoved herself through first, and he got out of her way. Then reached out to help Lilia.
"Harina?" Lilia asked.
"She isn't with you?"
She shook her head.
"Harina knows the way out," he said. "We all knew the risks. We need to get you out of here. Is it done?"
"I got what I came for," Lilia said. She had seen the temple creature herself. "Ahkio was telling the truth. And… there's much more to discuss. We'll talk about it at camp. I need to see the Catoris."
Avosta led the way to the cliff side. When Elaiko saw how they would travel back down, she nearly turned around. But there were more lights and noise from the courtyard, and Lilia knew they would send out jistas soon. If jistas found them out here, they were done.
Avosta went first, sliding down the great vine until he reached the point where a massive leaf curled, which broke his rapid descent. Then he stepped off, slid again, and called back up at them. "Come on! Hold tight!"
Lilia slid after him, wrapping her arms around the vine and holding tight to the wrist of her new hand with her stronger one to ensure a good grip. Elaiko came last, so quickly she nearly squashed Lilia's head during several descents.
Lilia came down heavily on the marshy ground below. Her breath was ragged. Avosta held out his hand and she took it. He looped an arm around her waist and helped her to the vine along the rushing water as Elaiko squelched after them.
"Do you see her?" Lilia asked.
"No. If Salifa is still there, it will be difficult for her to see us, too. We need to get into the water."
A little moan escaped Lilia; she was convinced it was Elaiko, but no. "The last time I swam across a river it was full of sharks," she said.
"Only fish, here," Avosta said, "but the water will be cold. Hold on to me."
She wrapped her arms around his neck as he plunged into the water. Elaiko shrieked as she followed.
Lilia gasped at the cold. The current pushed them against the massive length of the vine, and Avosta used the heaving current in their favor for a few steps, until the bottom of the river sank away.
She clung to him as water rushed over her, threatening to pull them beneath the vine and off and away. Lilia dug into her pocket for the bag of warded hazelnuts, hoping to reduce her weight, and the current snagged them, rushing them off and away downstream.
Elaiko grabbed hold of her tunic. "Help me!" Elaiko said.
Avosta grunted. The rushing water bubbled around them. His head went under, taking Lilia with him. Lilia nearly let go. They were just halfway across; she could see the other side. Where was Salifa?
Elaiko sagged behind Lilia, letting what felt like her whole weight yank her back.
Avosta lost his grip. All three of them rushed backwards, caught against the heaving vine. Elaiko twisted her hand into Lilia's tunic. Grabbed the vine with her other hand.
"I can't carry you both!" Avosta said, spitting water.
Behind them, billowing waves of red light began to creep down the cliff, tangling with the great vine. The smell of burning plant matter wafted over the river. The jistas were searching for them – and burning the vine-bridge behind them.
Lilia released her hold on Avosta and hooked her stronger arm through a tangle in the vine. Avosta, free of them both, clawed forward another few paces and reached back for her.
"Let go of me, Elaiko," Lilia said. Her fingers were numb. She felt only the dull pressure of Elaiko clinging to her shoulder. "Grab the vine. Let go."
The smell of burning grew stronger.
"Let her go!" Avosta said. "Come on, Lilia!"
Lilia tried to pull herself forward. Elaiko lost her grip on her and clung to the vine. Lilia crept forward. Her arms burned. She could no longer feel her fingers.
Avosta stretched to reach her. "A little further," he said.
Elaiko splashed behind her.
Lilia grabbed his fingertips. The vine shuddered. She turned and saw the great red wave of fiery light engulf the vine on the other side of the river.
"No," Lilia breathed.
The vine snapped. Broke free of the other side. Lilia howled and clung to it with her good hand as best she could. The force of the water whipped the vine downstream with a savage jerk.
Avosta lost his grip and disappeared beneath the dark waves. Elaiko screamed. Lilia closed her eyes and held on tightly, riding the push of the water. She hit several rocks, a dull ache. The vine rolled up against the bank. Lilia's feet met the shallow bottom and she hauled herself over the vine and up onto the bank on the other side. She collapsed in the mud, shaking violently.
Elaiko crawled up beside her and began to sob.
Lilia sat up. "We don't have much time," she wheezed, and patted her pockets. She found her mahuan-laced water bulb and took a great swallow.
She did not wait for Elaiko, but continued further up the bank, breath still coming too heavily. She sank down again, defeated. She needed the rest. Closed her eyes. Focused on her breathing.
"Where is that man?" Elaiko said. "Did he… did he make it across?"
Lilia gritted her teeth. She heaved herself up, using a low hanging branch as leverage, and tottered forward. She shoved Elaiko, startling them both. The shocked look on Elaiko's face was so satisfying that Lilia did it again, and again. Elaiko shrank away.
"You fool!" Lilia said. "You absolute cowardly fool! You could have drowned all three of us. Avosta was worth three of you!"
"I'm a fool? Me? What did we learn in there, really? That someone is going to break the world? How does that help us?"
Lilia reared back to push her again. Elaiko caught her by her soft new hand and twisted it. Lilia cried out, stumbled, and fell to her knees.
Elaiko released her. Took two steps back. "You aren't anything special," Elaiko said. "Ora Nasaka thought she was special too, and they murdered her all the same."
"None of us are special," Lilia said, panting. "There are no special people. No one chosen to save us. We're stuck in some long cycle of death and destruction begun thousands of years before we were born, and it will go on thousands of years after, unless we stop it. Not anyone special. Just us, Elaiko. You're right. I'm not important. Nor are you. But we found something out today. We found out how to murder the Tai Mora and take back our country. We found out how to use these temples our ancestors built to save ourselves. We may not be special, but that is."
Lilia waited a moment in silence while Elaiko caught her breath, then slowly rose to her feet, pushing out her twisted leg to get better leverage. Even so, she nearly went over again. She turned away from Elaiko and started up the long, winding path to the cover of the woodland above where the dogs would be waiting, if her luck held.
After a few moments, she heard Elaiko come after her with great plodding steps. The misty red light did not cross the water, but what was left of the vine continued to burn, shedding red-black embers of itself that sailed through the air, dipping and spiraling before extinguishing themselves in the water.
"Lilia? Is that you?"
A figure at the top of the trail, still a hundred paces further up. Lilia squinted. "Salifa?"
"Yes, come, I'll help you–"
"Don't use your gift! They are watching from the temple!"
Salifa came down to meet her. "I can help," Salifa said, "put your arm around me."
Lilia looped her arm around Salifa's waist, grateful for the help. "Who is this?" Salifa asked. "Where are the others?"
"This is Elaiko," Lilia said. "She has a ward. You'll need to remove it before we go much further. Just… wait until we reach the dogs. I want to be able to move quickly if they see you."
They reached the place where they had left the dogs: two more than they needed with Avosta and Harina missing.
"Tie them behind," Lilia said. "We meet at the rendezvous point. If they make it out, they will see us there."
"I'm so sorry," Salifa said. "What happened? Were you successful?"
"We were successful," Lilia said, and she turned to Elaiko, daring her to say something, but Elaiko only shivered atop her mount, cold and miserable.
"Will you please take off the collar?" Elaiko asked.
Salifa reined her dog next to Elaiko and twisted a few breaths of Tira's power that neatly untangled whatever weave they had put on the collar to keep Elaiko from drawing on her star.
"Another parajista," Salifa said, nodding. "All right. We could always use another jista, even one with a descendant star."
Lilia turned away so neither could see her grimace. "Let's hurry," Lilia said. "The sky waits on no one."
|
(Worldbreaker Saga 3) The Broken Heavens
|
Kameron Hurley
|
[
"fantasy",
"LGBT",
"science fiction fantasy"
] |
[] |
Chapter 18
|
Taigan thought it quaint that the Dhai had retreated to the Woodland. Perhaps it was inevitable, but he kept imagining them pushed further and further west, until they were caught up against the sea. He envisioned them hurling themselves off the cliffs and dying spectacularly in a grim pile of broken bodies and squalling babies.
He had always enjoyed his vivid imagination.
Taigan suspected they had moved far north, and his interrogation of the local Woodland Dhai confirmed that. He had followed Lilia across the Woodland to a fingerling peninsula that jutted into the Hahko sea before, in pursuit of her and her little girlfriend, the first Gian, the one he had hated less than the second, and certainly the least of all three of them. That Gian had some sense. Lilia's fondness for that area made it the first he considered. She would be less likely to bury herself in the foothills of Mount Ahya, though that would have been the strategically smarter choice. That would have also been the first place the Tai Mora looked, and from what he gathered, where they were spending most of their time rooting out small bands of Dhai that Taigan suspected were likely decoys.
Luna ate little and spoke less, which he would have considered a blessing if he had not been so starved to hear Saiduan spoken. For a year he had traveled across Saiduan, holing up in little abandoned towns to see what he could do with Oma now that it had risen. He had great fun with that for a few months, but one could only raze so many villages and dismember so many wayward livestock before growing bored.
When he had sought out company, there was little to find but Tai Mora. Unlike in the Dhai valley, they had kept few Saiduan slaves. Once they had their people and armies through, and their world imploded, there was no reason to kill more Dhai, or anyone else, for that matter. All of the doubles in the Tai Mora world who could arrive had already come over. And someone here had to do the filthy work of farming. In preserving her armies, their Empress had had little time to save her farmers. She was a lord with armies aplenty, but no one who knew how to weave a basket.
Being a warlord was one thing. Being a leader was entirely another.
The trek through the Woodland was as awful as he remembered it, though he was prepared for many of its horrors this time. The swinging bone trees, the curling tendrils that signalled a bladder trap, the dreadful little tree gliders that would dart forward and steal food straight from one's mouth – all of these he could navigate much more easily than before.
It was not long before he found the tracks of a scouting party. He and Luna followed those for a few days to a tree-based camp of what he realized were Woodland Dhai, not refugees. They shouted the two of them off, and deployed a sticky fence that would have trapped them if not for Oma's fiery breath at his call.
"I'm surprised there are this many left," Luna said as they continued their long march toward the sea.
Taigan worked ahead of hir, burning vegetation with little tendrils of Oma's power. He delighted in watching the nasty little plants begin to curl and char and drop. He crushed them under his feet as he walked, and found it deeply satisfying.
"They won't be able to gather in groups of more than a few hundred," Taigan said. "They won't want to draw on their jistas, either. That would be like drawing a great target down over themselves."
"But… aren't you doing that, then? By clearing the brush that way."
Taigan frowned. "It's not much power."
"And you enjoy it."
"I enjoy it immensely."
A few days later, Taigan found signs of another scouting party. This one was much less careful than the first. Despite the tree cover, he could smell the sea. He heard the scouting pair because they were arguing about food – a common topic among everyone during these hungry times.
"How will we approach them?" Luna whispered as Taigan caught his first sight of them through the trees.
"They aren't gifted," Taigan said. "It will be easy."
Taigan tied up the two young scouts with a few threads of Oma's breath and marched down the little gully to them. They could not have been much into their teens. It was almost too easy.
"I'm here to see the little rebel girl in charge," Taigan said. "She is an old protégée of mine. I assume you are led by this rebel girl, the one with the limp?"
The terrified scouts took some persuasion, but eventually led him and Luna to a large thorn fence that encircled what appeared to be little more than a handful of tents. Something about the whole arrangement seemed off. Was this a forward camp? Surely no one lived here.
He felt the air compress around him, but he had already put up a defensive shield. He noted two tirajistas up in a tree a few paces distant, and neatly cut them off from their satellite using the Song of Unmaking. One of them squealed.
"I'm not here to harm anyone!" he called. "Tell your Kai that Shao Taigan Masaao has brought some information that you may all find quite useful."
A flurry of movement at his left. A young runner bolted from one of the tents and disappeared below ground. Ah, of course. Underground. Taigan grinned because he recognized Lilia's thinking in that. Ever the pragmatic strategist.
It was nearly an hour before anyone else approached them. Taigan released the two young scouts, who hopped the fence and sprinted away. Taigan sat on an old downed tree next to Luna.
"You really think they'll let a sanisi in there?" Luna said.
"They will meet me."
"What if they don't? What then?"
"I make them meet me."
Luna grimaced. "You are just the same."
"Dire times call for–"
"No, you have always been mean. That's why Maralah loved you and hated you."
"What do you know what Maralah thought?"
"She told me. You frustrated her."
"Good. You know what it is to be compelled by her, against your own wishes."
"Yet you would do it to these Dhai."
"You have a bleeding little heart for a Saiduan," Taigan said.
"I don't think I'm Saiduan. Not Dhai either. Is that possible?"
Taigan shrugged. "Many foreign slaves exist in the spaces between things. I was never like anyone else."
A slender, pock-marked man with a mean little face approached them a few minutes later, coming up from the camp with a line of jistas positioned behind him. Taigan kept a thread of Oma's breath just beneath his skin, in case he needed to cut them off in addition to the tirajistas still powerless in the trees.
"I'm Liaro," the man said. "The Kai's cousin. He's asked you to tell me of your first meeting with him, to confirm your identity."
"I had an audience with him in Oma's Temple," Taigan said. "Though he spoke little and his elders spoke much. I informed him of the importance of finding a gifted omajista, someone we thought could act as a worldbreaker. Your Kai was not terribly pleasant to me."
Liaro nodded. "We would ask that – as a show of good faith – you release your hold on our Oras and novices and let them draw upon their satellites again."
"Will that get me an audience?"
"It will, if you would permit them to shield your power in his presence."
"You realize I am just as deadly without Oma as with it."
"Which is why this is merely a show of good faith."
"I permit it," Taigan said.
Liaro waved back at the line of jistas. Taigan released the Song of Unmaking, and let go of Oma's breath. He felt the combined weight of several jistas immediately and inexpertly attempt a Song of Unmaking on him. The air went heavy, then lightened as they became satisfied with their work.
It was not a true fix; Taigan could still sense Oma, and knew that if he applied himself, he could break their clumsy spells. But it seemed to satisfy them, and that's what he wanted.
Liaro led Taigan and Luna back to the circle of jistas. They surrounded a tent which had the flaps of the walls rolled up so that the people sitting around the table inside were clearly visible.
Taigan recognized the Kai first, a pretty young man even with his sad eyes that had dark circles beneath them. Another was familiar, probably Yisaoh, the daughter to one of the clan leaders. He had moved through Clan Garika on his journey to the temple, and she had made a nuisance of herself. The other woman, with fiery eyes, slightly bent over the table, and a large man and skinny man who stood just behind her – either lovers or bodyguards, perhaps both – he did not know.
"Shao Taigan," Ahkio said.
Taigan inclined his head. "You live."
"As do you. This is Catori Yisaoh."
"We met very briefly."
"I remember you," Yisaoh said, curling a lip. She had something in her hand; a cigarette butt, unlit. Where were they getting Tordinian cigarettes out here? "You were skulking about Garika."
"I'm glad I'm memorable," Taigan said.
"And this is Catori Meyna."
"Two Catoris?" Taigan said, amused. "I'm surprised there aren't more. Always good to have redundancies."
"There were," Yisaoh said, coolly. "Catori Mohrai has died."
"That sounds very tragic," Taigan said.
Luna was already tugging at Taigan's sleeve. "What is it?" Taigan asked.
Ze stared at Yisaoh. "She… I'll tell you later. But, it's important."
"Who is this with you?" Meyna asked.
"I'm Luna," ze said. "Taigan and I know each other from Saiduan."
"You said you have information?" Ahkio gestured for them to sit.
The weight of the attention from the circle of jistas made the air thick. Taigan sat across from the Kai, and Luna sat next to him, balling up hir hands into fists in hir lap.
Taigan leaned back in his chair and observed the three figures at the table. Yisaoh leaned away from them. Ahkio's hands trembled slightly, and he pulled them from the table. Meyna was most confident. She had the intense black stare of a woman with a plan she was already in the midst of rolling out.
When he spoke, it was to Meyna. "Luna was working with a number of your scholars in the north. Ze discovered what it is the Tai Mora want with the temples, and how to use them."
"We know the Tai Mora have plans to close the ways between the worlds," Meyna said. "But that's none of our concern."
"Isn't it?" Taigan said. "I bring you the knowledge of how to do far more than that."
Meyna shook her head. "It's not in our interests, what she's doing. We have come to a decision to leave Dhai."
That surprised him. He looked to the Kai, who nodded. "Meyna and I discussed it at length. This is not a conflict that is winnable if we want to remain true Dhai."
"Pacifists, you mean," Taigan said. "That is true."
Ahkio nodded. "We have already committed many crimes in the face of this conflict. If we want to continue, to rebuild, it is time for us to leave Dhai."
"I can't imagine that is going over well with those who follow little Lilia."
Meyna and Ahkio exchanged a look. Yisaoh snorted and tried to light her cigarette stub with a fire pod.
"Lilia is no longer with us," Meyna said. "Even if she were, she is not a Catori. Her wishes have no part in the decisions we make here."
"Dead, then?" Taigan said.
"Dead to me," Meyna said. "Her actions put all of us in danger."
Taigan rolled that over. Interesting. "How do you intend to get away from the Tai Mora?" he asked. "They have you pinned here against the sea."
"We are not trapped," Meyna said. "I am working with the Woodland Dhai, and some Saiduan refugees who washed ashore over the winter. In return for helping them rebuild their ships, we will go with them."
"A fine and simple plan," Taigan said, "if you trust Woodland Dhai and the Saiduan."
"We share a common enemy," Meyna said.
Luna raised hir gaze from hir lap. "You can't outrun the Tai Mora," she said. "They'll find you, if they want to. And what they could choose to do to the world with all the power they could wield… it's far more than just keeping other worlds from coming here. They could reshape everything. Grow a mountain right out of the ground, or have the sea wash you away, wherever you are. You can't run."
Meyna said, "What's your name again?"
"Luna."
"Luna. You speak with a Saiduan accent, Luna."
"You speak with a Dhai accent."
"This is Dhai, you silly little thing."
"Best tell the Tai Mora that, then."
Taigan smirked. He wanted to pat Luna's precious little head. "If we cannot work together, then we will part ways," he said.
"And how do I know you won't give us up to the Tai Mora?" Meyna said.
"What motive would I have for that?"
"You could be their emissary."
"I invite you to attempt to stop me from leaving. It would be a very fine show. Your people have had, perhaps, a year to train your little Oras and novices in the fighting arts. In my country, we did not separate our physical fighters from our gifted ones. And I have been fighting for longer than anyone in this whole blighted little refugee camp has been alive."
"We aren't refugees," Ahkio said. "This is our country."
"You are refugees," Taigan said. "This is not your country. The sooner you all understand that, the easier it will be on you. By all appearances you've sat about here squawking and arguing and doing nothing for a year but dying, getting picked off by Tai Mora. It's a wonder any of you are still alive at all. One raging case of yellow pox comes through here and the temples, and you're all dead, finished, the Dhai race extinguished. You are already a memory, a footnote in some history book."
"Then why are you here?" Ahkio said.
A cry came from behind them. Taigan peered around Ahkio and saw a young girl burst through the line of jistas. She could not have been more than five or six years old, a fat-cheeked girl with dark hair, soft chin, and luminous eyes.
Yisaoh hurried over to her. "Go back, Tasia."
"Is she here?" the girl asked. "Is she back?"
With the others' attention shifted, Luna leaned toward Taigan. "That woman, Catori Yisaoh, and the child. I've seen them both before."
"All Dhai look alike."
"No, on another world. Where that woman, Kirana, is keeping her family."
Taigan raised his brows.
Luna lowered hir voice further. "The names are even the same. Yisaoh, the Empress's consort, and Tasia, one of the Empress's children. They can't come over."
"Interesting," Taigan said.
Yisaoh passed the child off to one of the jistas, who took her back below ground.
"I apologize," Ahkio said. "The children get restless."
"I've no doubt," Taigan said.
"If you believe us bested already," Ahkio continued, "why bother with us?"
Taigan snorted. "I didn't come for you. I was looking for the crippled girl. She had more sense and more backbone than the rest of you. A pity." He stood. "If you will do nothing to alter the course of this cycle, then we are working at cross-purposes. I will find other allies."
Luna sighed.
Ahkio stood as well. Meyna turned to confer with the men behind her. Yisaoh gave up trying to light her cigarette and stuffed it back into her pocket.
"It is a shame Lilia isn't here," Ahkio said. "I know the two of you did not get along, but she had become a great ally to you."
"Oh it's fine," Taigan said. "She has a head for strategy, but it's true she has been far less useful since she burned out. I had hoped, however, you all would share her determination to stop the Tai Mora instead of running from them. I suspect she's off doing something you don't approve of, like finding a way to murder a bunch of Tai Mora."
There was a strange shift. Yisaoh blurted, "Burned out?"
"At the harbor," Taigan said. "Ages ago. You didn't know?"
Meyna shook her head. "You must be joking. The dajians worship her."
"Don't use that word," Ahkio said.
Yisaoh said, "Lilia isn't gifted? Is this a Saiduan joke?"
"Not gifted! That drink-addled roach!" Meyna said.
Taigan considered his options. Holding the entire camp hostage while waiting for Lilia – especially if she were to die on whatever escapade she was on – would be an exhausting exercise. And if she had no power to move these people, that wouldn't be useful to him, either.
"You said something of Saiduan refugees here," Taigan said. "Where? They have more fight left in them than the Dhai."
"You are welcome to speak to them," Ahkio said, "but you'll find that they, too, are done fighting. Another two days northwest of here, near the sea. They have the natural harbor there warded, though, a hazing ward to keep out the Tai Mora who are working further up the coast."
"We'll be on our way, then."
Ahkio walked with him and Luna to the thorn fence. Taigan considered it entirely unnecessary. As they came to the barrier, however, Ahkio said, "Did you ever find the person you were really looking for? The one you thought Lilia was?"
"No," Taigan said.
"Then perhaps the Tai Mora haven't either. Maybe all this knowledge is for nothing, if they don't have the right people."
"Like a Kai?"
"Yes. The temples are closed to this Kirana. She isn't the true Kai."
"You've been under the temples?" Luna asked.
"Yes," Ahkio said. "But there were no devices under there, no… engines. Just…" He shook his head, as if dismissing his next words as too ludicrous to utter. They must have been outrageous indeed for him to hesitate after all that had happened. "I wish you luck finding your allies," he continued. "But all we want now is to live peacefully."
"Living peacefully requires war," Taigan said. "In Saiduan the word for peace could be translated as, simply, the time between wars."
"I've never believed that. The Dhai haven't fought a war in five hundred years."
"You forget the Pass War."
"That was defensive."
"It was still a war, Kai Ahkio. I fear you and your people are dancing about in circles pretending you can come away from this time in our history utterly clean and without guilt. But you have not and you won't."
"Goodbye, Taigan," Ahkio said.
Taigan tipped his chin at Ahkio. "Goodbye for now, Kai Ahkio. Though I think we are not yet done."
Taigan stepped over the thorn fence, and helped Luna after him. He nearly broke the terrible Song of Unmaking spell right there, to show them his power and how bad their defenses truly were, but waited, instead, until they dropped the song and he could access Oma as easily as breathing, once again.
"You think we can convince other Saiduan to help us?" Luna asked.
"I'm uncertain," Taigan said, "but I'm not really doing anything else. If we do not find allies soon, I may simply burn that whole temple down myself. Doesn't that sound like fun?"
Luna was quiet a moment, then, "It does, actually."
|
(Worldbreaker Saga 3) The Broken Heavens
|
Kameron Hurley
|
[
"fantasy",
"LGBT",
"science fiction fantasy"
] |
[] |
Chapter 19
|
Lilia arrived at the meeting point with Elaiko and Salifa just as the first hint of dawn tickled the horizon. She was exhausted and achy; she nearly fell asleep twice on her mount. She scanned the shallow rise of the meeting point as they broke through the trees, hoping to see Harina or Avosta. The smell of smoke still permeated the air, though there was no sign of the fires that Mihina had directed to draw out the patrols.
She had barely begun the ascent, Salifa and Elaiko trailing, when Namia howled and bounded down the hill toward her. Namia clapped her hands and patted Lilia's leg in the stirrup, signing frantically, so fast Lilia could not make it out.
"Slow down," Lilia said. "What is it?"
"Success," Namia signed. "You?"
"Yes," Lilia said. "We had success. You kept the patrols very busy. Thank you."
Namia beamed, which looked more like a grimace on her ravaged face.
Mihina came to the edge of camp, wringing her hands, staring off behind them. "Is this all? Where's Harina?"
"We were separated," Lilia said, sliding down from her bear. "We lost Avosta in the river, too, but… it's possible he just washed downstream. I'd like to wait for them, just in case. This is Elaiko. Our contact inside. She was… very helpful." The last part, Lilia had to force out.
"The patrols are far from here," Mihina said. "Do you think they noticed you in the temple? Will they send parties out?"
"I think it will be some time before they realize we escaped," Lilia said. "They won't know how we got out."
"How did you?" Mihina asked. "And why isn't Harina–"
"There was a scuffle," Lilia said. "Blood. Not hers, but… she stayed behind. I think she'll circle back. There's no reason she shouldn't have gotten out as well."
Mihina offered them hard bread and raw tubers. Lilia sat back against one of the trees, and ate gratefully. She fell asleep listening to Salifa and Mihina speaking in low tones, discussing the reconnaissance.
"Was it worth it?" Mihina said, very softly, as Lilia fell into the warm, gauzy arms of sleep. "My sister–"
"I don't know," Salifa said. "Let's see what she has to say back at camp."
A snap. A hiss. The sound of a man huffing up the hill. Lilia snapped awake, disoriented, the tangy smell of everpine in her nostrils.
Avosta struggled up the rise. He leaned against a tree for support. He shivered violently.
"Mihina! Stoke the fire!" Salifa called.
They got Avosta out of his wet clothes and under a dry blanket. Mihina was able to dry his clothes quickly with a few tendrils of Sina's breath. It did not take long to warm him up.
"You're alive," he said to Lilia.
"So are you," she said.
"Harina?"
She shook her head.
Avosta wiped at his eyes. "I thought I was done, there, for a time."
"I'm glad you were not," Lilia said.
"We should…" Salifa glanced at Mihina. "I'm not sure how much longer we can risk waiting."
"I'll stay," Mihina said. "Another day. Please. She could still find her way here."
"I understand," Lilia said. "I'm so sorry, Mihina. Stay a day, but if it gets too dangerous–"
"It's always dangerous," Mihina said. "Being Dhai is dangerous."
The smaller party mounted up and left camp just as the suns reached the midpoint in the sky. Salifa hung her head, shoulders slumped. Elaiko nervously started at every breath of birdsong and flick of viney tendril.
Avosta rode up next to Lilia and asked, low, "Li, I'm sorry to ask, but what did we achieve there that we could not have learned from Elaiko, or some other Dhai already in the temple?"
"She was a slave there," Lilia said. "Was it right for us to depend on her for everything?"
"That isn't what I meant. Harina was–"
"She will make it out."
"But what did we–"
"We discovered how to defeat the Tai Mora," Lilia said. "Once and for all. You knew this was about getting information. We have that information now."
"I don't."
She glanced at him sharply. His tone was still soft, but she did not like the shift in his face: the pensive brows, tight mouth.
"Do you trust me?"
"You know I do," Avosta said. "I have faith in you. But… you would never lie to us, would you?"
"I'll never lie to you," Lilia said firmly. "You can trust that. Only great tyrants refuse to change course when they receive new information. What we've learned is that there's no need to attack any Tai Mora during Tira's Festival. We can strike back at them far more effectively if we take over the People's Temple. That one is the Key. That's where everything is going to happen."
"All right," Avosta said.
"Trust that I'm working on what's best for all of us," Lilia said. "I believe in the Dhai. I believe in a future for us."
When they arrived at the thorn fence surrounding the Dhai camp, most of their supplies were gone. Lilia wanted a long soak in a stone tub. They had left without much warning, sneaking away before Meyna or Yisaoh could argue, and Lilia did not expect anyone to be waiting for them. She was surprised, then, to see so many people above ground that afternoon, centered on the meeting tent.
When they came over the fence, Liaro came out to meet them. His hair was washed and braided back, his clothes clean, the cuts and bruises he had sustained on his journey mostly healed. The sly smile he gave Lilia as he took her dog's lead made her shiver, though she could not say why
"The Kai wishes to speak to you," he said.
"Good," Lilia said. "I have some things to say to her as well."
"Not the Catoris," he said. "The Kai."
Ah, Lilia thought, so that had been decided.
Yet it was not Ahkio, but Meyna who was striding across the muddy ground as Lilia told her bear to sit and dismounted. Lilia took up her walking stick just as Namia caught up to her. Walking stick in one hand, Namia on the other, she turned to face Meyna as the birds cooed overhead.
"You," Meyna said, "are an unconscionable liar. A charlatan. A con!"
Avosta slid off his bear and moved in front of Lilia. "What are you talking about?" he said.
"Your little scullery girl! Has she told you what she is? And here you all are, back from what, endangering all of us? Getting yourselves killed? How many of you actually left? You've lost some, Lilia. As I expected."
Behind Meyna, Ahkio hung back at the entrance to the tent. Lilia did not see Yisaoh anywhere. A good number of jistas were present, though, and a few of her beribboned followers. Did they fear Lilia would lash out at them? What was all this? Something had certainly shifted in her absence.
"We've been engaged on a reconnaissance mission," Lilia said coolly. "You will be interested to hear what we've learned. There is a way to destroy the Tai Mora and take our country back."
"This isn't our country," Meyna said. "Kai Ahkio and I have decided on the best way forward. We are leaving Dhai. You've known that for days."
The air was heavy. Lilia's ears popped.
"What exactly is happening here?" Lilia said, low.
Yisaoh came up from below ground. Lilia watched her carefully. Her face was grim.
"What's going on, Yisaoh?"
"You lied," Yisaoh said. "And we are not keen on being deceived. Not the Kai, not my fellow Catori, and certainly not all the people you've pretended to love while you deceived them."
"I've never lied–"
"Don't," Yisaoh said. "You told us you were gifted. You told me that."
Lilia felt heat move up her face. "I… I am. I have been ill, that's all. I've never lied."
"Taigan was here," Meyna said. "Not an hour ago."
A slow, piercing knife of dread crept up Lilia's spine. "Taigan? An… hour? How did you…?" She gazed back at Ahkio, still cowering there behind the tent flap. He would have recognized Taigan. "Are you sure?" she demanded, staring hard at Ahkio.
"If what that sanisi said isn't true," Yisaoh said, "show us."
"Li," Avosta said. "What are they talking about? You flew! You are our light!"
"We were easy to fool, weren't we?" Yisaoh said. "No omajistas among us, so no one would be able to see if it was you using your gift. How many of those little jistas with you have done your work for you? They aren't even proper Oras, they are so young! And you used them."
"I didn't use anyone," Lilia said quickly, voice breaking. Salifa was moving forward, her mouth a wide O of astonishment.
"You said you wouldn't lie!" Salifa said.
"It's not true!" Avosta said. He glanced back at Lilia, on his face an expression of absolute conviction. "You are gifted! Show them! You wouldn't lie about that."
Lilia felt trapped: her own people behind her, and Meyna and her new friend Ahkio ahead, with Yisaoh already sneering and turning.
"Faith Ahya was never gifted," Lilia said loudly, "and nor am I. Not anymore. I'm sorry you still thought that. The Tai Mora took that from me as they have taken your country from you." She met Avosta's look. "I'm so sorry. It wasn't… I didn't lie, I just… I didn't tell you I lost it. I was ashamed to burn out. If you thought I was not gifted, would you have followed me? Risked your life?"
"Yes," he said gruffly.
"Then I apologize," she said. "I was a fool. But Meyna, listen," and she raised her voice again. "This changes very little, doesn't it? You and Yisaoh are not gifted. Ahkio is not gifted. Most importantly, it doesn't change the truth of anything I am going to tell you."
"But you've already lied!" Salifa cried. "Li, we trusted you. You lied about this. About this of all things! Harina gave her life for you!"
"She should be exiled," Ahkio said, coming out from under the cover of the tent, hands trembling. "There is too much lying, too much–"
"You aren't even the true Kai!" Lilia said. It burst from her.
The blood rushed to his face, darkening him further. "Perhaps there are some here who would question my claim, but yours is in no doubt. You are an ungifted scullery girl."
"And you're a bully," Lilia said. "Some petty shadow from some other world taking advantage of these people!"
Namia whined softly next to Lilia. Lilia wanted to comfort her, to tell her it was all right, but words were running from her mind: all her arguments, her disassembling.
"Enough," Meyna said. "Lilia, the Kai and I have already spoken about this. We discussed it with many of the people here. For your dangerous actions and deplorable lies, we have seen fit to cast you from the camp. You are putting too many of us in danger."
The proclamation landed like a stone. Lilia felt it in her gut. She opened her mouth to deny it, but Avosta was staring at her, and Salifa was crying quietly. Elaiko simply gaped, fingers twisting the frayed hem of her tunic.
"How is it you take him in so easily," Lilia said, pointing at Ahkio, "and toss me aside? I've sweated and bled for you here. We are–"
"Your schemes have done nothing but tear out the hearts of those who love you," Meyna interrupted. "You disappoint us all again and again. And far from striking back at the Tai Mora, all your little missions and raids have done is make us bigger targets. It's time for you to move on."
"You are going to regret this," Lilia said softly.
"Go," Meyna said, "or I will have my Oras escort you."
"I would like to say goodbye to Emlee, and Tasia," Lilia said.
"No," Meyna said. "Take the dog and whatever you have with you and go. Don't come back here. Go now, before someone changes their mind."
Lilia lost her voice. She felt numb. Namia wailed and clutched at her arm. Lilia managed a quiet, "Shh, hush," sound to soothe her, but she could not look at any of them. Not Salifa or Avosta, and certainly not Elaiko, who had broken out of servitude only to witness Lilia's ostracism.
"I'll… I'll at least see her to the edge of the camp!" Salifa said.
"No," Meyna said. "I'm sorry, Salifa, but if you walk away with her, we'll have no choice but to consider you a danger as well. This woman lied to you. She will lie to you again."
Salifa's eyes filled. Avosta offered an arm, and she nodded, said, "Please hold me," and he did.
Lilia took the reins of her dog and stepped back over the thorn fence. Namia started after her.
"No, you!" Meyna said, and grabbed Namia.
Namia snarled and snapped at her. A great tangle of vines burst from the soil and ensnared her. Namia shrieked.
"Leave her alone!" Lilia said.
"Go!" Meyna said. "We'll release her when you're well gone."
"This is mad," Lilia said. She tugged at her dog's lead. "You're power mad, all of you."
"But… you can't go!" Elaiko said. "You don't… I…" Another snarl of vines curled up between them. Elaiko shrieked and stepped back.
Lilia limped forward, tugging her dog after her. She had no idea in which direction to go. There was no other place for her. What of the other refugees? Could she turn back and gather them? Call to Emlee? Namia was still shrieking. Ahkio and Meyna had cut her off, kept her from going below for this reason. Banished her while she was separated from most of her allies. She kept moving, urging herself to think.
She got onto the dog nd led it through the brush in circles for some time until she could no longer hear the sound of Namia's screaming. She only stopped when she grew thirsty. Lilia had the dog sit, and dismounted. She rested along the side of a narrow creek bed. The great dog lay down beside her and put its massive head in her lap. She sobbed.
"I don't know what I did wrong," Lilia whispered. Though it wasn't true. There were many things she had failed at, and many more she would have failed at, if she stayed. Ahkio and Meyna would be too terrified to risk carrying out the kind of complicated scheme that would be required for them to take control of the temples: a Key, a Guide, and a Worldbreaker! Like some riddle. They would never have believed her.
A snapping sound from the woods. The dog raised its head, let out a low growl. Lilia tensed, expecting a wild bear, perhaps, or a boar. Instead, three men approached her, men she recognized from the camp, men aligned with Meyna.
"Come quietly," the eldest said. "Catori Meyna has another fate for you."
"I don't understand."
They took hold of her. She cried out only once, at the shock of being so roughly handled without consent. They knotted a bit of cord around her hands and slung her unceremoniously onto the back of the dog.
"What are you doing?" Lilia huffed. "Where are you taking me?"
She did not have far to go to find out. After only a few minutes, they pushed her off the dog. She fell in a heap. Raised her head.
A massive bone tree sat at the center of a sparkling white clearing strewn with bleached bones. It was an ancient tree, as wide as Lilia was tall, a grim, rippling thing made from the bones of its own prey. Large bear skulls and the delicate skulls of treegliders made up its base; long, snapped tibias and fibias bound by pale, clotted sap and the tree's fibrous tendons made up its branches. The bare crown of it did not so much reach for the sky as dominate it, a crown, a throne to some dark god.
And there, a few paces from the ring of pale bones at the edge of the clearing, stood Meyna. She held the lead of a dog. Two jistas were with her, both full Oras that Lilia recognized. Meyna did not look away as Lilia gazed at her.
"Is this what you did to Mohrai?" Lilia called.
Meyna said, "No. Unlike you, we aren't all murderers. This is something else. More personal. I meant what I said, Lilia. You are far too dangerous to the Dhai, alive. You have endangered us. And you would continue doing it. I know that, because I understand you, little Lilia. I was you, I think, when I was very young. Always seeking attention. Trying to find my place. But I've found my place now, Lilia."
"Don't do this," Lilia said.
Meyna shook her head. She gestured to the men who held Lilia. "Give her to it."
Lilia screamed loud and long, so loud and long she startled the dogs, which began to bark.
The men hauled Lilia up and tossed her into the bone-white clearing, well within reach of the snarling branches of the bone tree. Lilia landed with a crunch onto the discarded bones of the tree's prey, her nose filling with the faint scent of rot. She wriggled forward, moving as quickly as she could, knowing it was already too late.
The creaking of bones. Hissing. A searing pain in her shoulder.
Her body jerked upright, lifted high, high in the air. A knotted limb of the bone tree jutted from her left shoulder, a limb made from cast-off bits of bird bones twisted together with its gooey, poisonous sap. The sap mingled with her blood and spattered the pale ground below as the tree pulled her into its crackling embrace.
A second bony limb stabbed through her lower left side, just above her buttock. She screamed again. Wheezed. Gasped. She tried to find her mahuan with her one working arm. Lost her breath. No more screaming. Gasping. Like a speared fish.
The tree shivered in excitement.
Sunlight from above blinded her. The canopy here was thin, as the bone tree's poison killed any plant life that came too close. She swung her head, trying to see Meyna and her kin.
"This isn't… necessary!" Lilia gasped.
"I assure you it is," Meyna said, and it frustrated Lilia that she could not see her face. "I know you too well, Lilia, far better than Ahkio does. You won't sit around in the woods feeling sorry for yourself. You'll scheme something up. Play the martyr. And we are done with playing games, you and I. We are going to get out of these woods. No more raids. No more secret excursions. You want revenge. You want to fight a force you cannot win against. You care nothing about the people here, and what's best for them. I do."
"This is… a terrible…" Lilia said, but it came out slurred and soft. Her head swam. The poison was making her stuffy-headed already. Relaxed. Her breath came a little easier. How funny.
Dark patches moved across her vision. Numbness crept up her fingers and toes. Her wounds still throbbed, but it was very distant, like an achy tooth. She had a fond memory of watching Taigan dangling just like this, speared by a bone tree. What would have happened if she chose to leave him there? Would she still be here? Was this always going to be the end for her?
Anger burned in her belly. She struggled. But her body would not respond.
She wondered if this was how her mother felt, welded to the top of that great mirror, bound to it until death, until Lilia destroyed her. Until the world destroyed Lilia.
A sharp pain seared through her sternum. She gasped. Bent her head. But there was no visible wound. No gnarled bone branch pushing through her.
The poison, maybe. The poison doing its final work.
Oma, Lilia thought, you have a grim sense of humor.
|
(Worldbreaker Saga 3) The Broken Heavens
|
Kameron Hurley
|
[
"fantasy",
"LGBT",
"science fiction fantasy"
] |
[] |
Chapter 20
|
Death was overrated.
But then, so was recovery.
She had done enough of both to know.
She had been mangled, mutilated, infected and left for dead before. The second time wasn't any more fun than the first. The injuries themselves were far worse this time, of course. Or perhaps she had forgotten how excruciating the infected wounds from those wily court predators had been. The mind had a habit of dampening the details of trauma over time, surfacing them only when violently triggered.
Her mind processed her surroundings slowly, as if moving through treacle. Close quarters. Warm. Very dark. Cramped. She lay with her knees tucked up to her chest and her arms squeezed tightly against her sides, and there was something… pulsing and moving around her and… through her. Something slick and alive. She began to tremble violently.
She kicked out. Met resistance. She was in a very small space. Kicked again. Wood. A trunk? What? She began to rip at the slimy growths sticking out of her body. As she pulled them free, she felt a great sense of both pain and relief, like yanking out a splinter or a bad tooth.
More kicking. Spitting. Huffing. Then she pushed up, and the ceiling gave way. Her space filled with dim blue light. She yanked away more of the growths as she tried to sit up. They were some kind of vine. As she pulled them out, her body released pale amber streamers of ooze. Her skin closed quickly around the wounds, almost instantly. She marveled at it. How incredible.
A sharp pain in her sternum made her double over. She tipped her head over the end of her enclosure – a box? a trunk? – and heaved and gagged, nauseous. Blackish vomit spattered across the floor. She clawed at her chest, at the source of the pain, and felt a cold, raised lump in the center of her core, just below her breasts. She pressed her palm against it, triggering another wave of pain. The raised mark had three curved edges and a long tail. Her body broke out in a cold sweat.
She peered at the great round room. It that smelled of musty loam. Underground? Like a cairn.
Disoriented, she tried to get out of the trunk, and stumbled over the lip of it. Crashed onto the floor.
"What's this? Oh!" A voice. Footsteps, soft.
"The fuck?" she muttered, trying to raise her head.
"Hush now," a soft, airy voice.
Fuzzy images: a smear of red cloth, a distorted face. The dim orange flickering of flame flies.
"How did you wake me up?"
"I didn't. You were a box of bones."
"A what?"
"You were not awakened. You were recreated. That's what she told me, anyhow. And it appears it was true."
"Sounds complicated."
"It was."
"What's the catch?"
The fuzzy image resolved itself as the figure leaned over her, showed its teeth. A little old woman with sagging jowls and loose, bare skin on her arms that hinted she had once been much more substantial. Puffy white hair crowned the skull, shot through with moss and tiny branches. Perhaps a spider. Probably lice.
"The catch," the old woman said, "well, there is one, I think. You are bound to her."
"Who is her?"
"She isn't here. They exiled her."
"I've already died a few times. Who's to say I want to live?"
"Oh, I think you want to live."
"Who the fuck are you?"
"I am Emlee."
Her sternum ached again. She gasped. Rubbed at the raised mark again; not a mark, no – there was definitely something just under her skin, inside of her, pressing against her guts. She had a sudden urge to get above ground and go… there. That direction, behind her, whatever compass direction that was. Why? But the compulsion lingered. The thing in her chest burned coldly.
"You have any clothes, Emlee?"
"Yes, one moment. You feel something?"
"Yeah, cold."
Emlee brought her trousers and tunic, all very plain and musty, full of moth holes. Her body began to ache in earnest, a painful ache, like a scratch that needed itching. There was some place she needed to be.
"I have to go," she said. "Thanks."
"Shoes?"
She looked at her feet. Good looking feet. Clean nails. Good skin. For the first time she truly regarded her hands. Smooth skin there, too. No scars. No blemishes. That wasn't right. There was something about her hands that she could not remember… this wasn't right.
"What the fuck happened to me, really?" she said.
"I don't know. You'll have to ask Lilia."
"Why do I know that name?"
Emlee shook her head. "I don't know. She didn't tell me."
Her stomach ached. "I have to go. I need to go." She ran past Emlee, following the desperate urge of her body.
She sprinted past startled children and skinny, malnourished Dhai faces. What had happened here? Where the fuck was she?
Up a ladder. Across a clearing. Over a narrow thorn fence. She burst into a sprint. Her body worked beneath her, free and tireless. The damp ground thumped under her bare feet and it felt good, so good, to feel the cool air against her skin, and the breath heaving through her fresh lungs. I'm alive, I'm alive! she thought. But why is that strange? Why is it so strange to be alive, as if she would be anything else?
She ran and ran, compelled to go north, following a little stream. This deep in the woods, there was little light from the moons or the satellites, but she found that she could see fairly clearly. She continued on, hungry to find what compelled her, but still not tired.
As she came to the edge of a milky white clearing, the itching ache across her skin and deep in her sternum began to subside. She gazed across the clearing and realized it glowed white because it was full of bones. And there, hanging from the great bony limbs of a twisted bone tree, was a body.
She stepped confidently across the clearing. When the tree reached for her, she simply snapped off the branch, easily as snapping a twig. Her hand did not even hurt. It tried again. She snapped it off. Again, and again. She grinned. It was a fun game.
She broke off every branch of the tree but those that held the body. Then stepped back to regard it. A lone bird sat atop the tree, just above the body, eyeing her as if she would steal its meal.
"You alive?" she asked. The girl was very familiar. Twisted foot, a soft new left hand, and a forgettable face covered in shiny little scars. Was this Lilia?
The body's eyes opened.
"You Lilia?" she asked.
The girl gave a sluggish nod. "Yes. You…" Her eyes widened. "You aren't… No."
"What have you done to me?"
"I don't… know?"
"I was in a fucking box!"
Lilia huffed and gagged. She thought the girl was having convulsions, a stroke, but no, she was laughing.
"The box… it was you in the box…" Lilia said. "Oh, Oma, you think you're so funny."
"Why is it…" She stopped. A thunderous understanding came over her. A tree. A mirror. This girl's scarred face. She sank to her knees. "Oh no," she said.
"I didn't know," Lilia said. "I didn't know it was you in the box. You were supposed to be some great warrior."
"I hope you didn't overpay."
Lilia wheezed again. "Please get me down. This tree is killing me."
"Why should I, after what you've done?"
"Because we're bound, that's what Kalinda said. If I die, you die."
"Maybe I want to die."
"Do you?" Lilia huffed. Closed her eyes. "How many times do you really want to die, Zezili Hasaria?"
Zezili pressed a hand to her own throbbing shoulder. A searing pain began to work its way into her back. The same places Lilia bore injuries.
"I chose to die," Zezili said. "But it was under false pretenses."
"So get revenge," Lilia said. "That's what I am going to do."
"If I get you down from there, what's next?"
"I have no idea."
"What if I just want to murder everyone who wronged me?"
Lilia huffed and snorted. "I can help you with that."
|
(Worldbreaker Saga 3) The Broken Heavens
|
Kameron Hurley
|
[
"fantasy",
"LGBT",
"science fiction fantasy"
] |
[] |
Chapter 21
|
Anavha sat at the end of a large bed that took up most of the narrow room that the man called Suari had shoved him into. A slim window gave him a glimpse of the world outside, but only just. It didn't make it feel less like a cell.
He was already shivering, clutching his hands in his lap, conflicted about what he should do.
Natanial had told him he would be free, not some slave. He hadn't understood much of what was said with the Empress, but getting hauled off by Suari and shoved into a room, alone, with no explanation, did not bode well. He desperately wanted to trust Natanial, but who was Natanial next to the Empress? How much power did he truly have? Anavha knew he had a very limited amount of time to make a decision, and the knowledge of that made him sweat.
He always waited too long, until it was too late. Zezili would have been bold. Zezili was always so good at making decisions.
The wall in front of him trembled. Anavha shifted his gaze and stared at the rippling surface. Was this another quake, like that one when the mountain fell from the sky? No, he wasn't shaking. Just… the wall…
A boy tumbled out of the wall.
Anavha shrieked and leapt onto the bed.
The boy on the floor groaned and rubbed at the arm he had fallen on. He sat up. It was the boy from the foyer, the one with the broken knees who spoke Dorinah, like all the Dhai seemed to.
"How did you get in here?" Anavha said.
"I… Oh no," he said. "This wasn't how it was supposed to go. Dasai… he's going to murder me. They're going to kill me for this. Sina, take me swiftly."
"What are you talking about?"
"Keep your voice down," he said. "Please. They are going to be looking for me. And when they find me…"
"What did you do?"
The boy struggled to his feet. Anavha got up and helped him.
"Thank you," he said. "I'm Roh. You're Anavha?"
Anavha nodded.
"Did you understand what they were saying, up there? About warding you?" Roh asked.
"No. They just threw me in here and–"
"They are going to ward you like they did me," he said. "You will be bound to the Empress. You won't be able to hurt her. Betraying her will cause pain. It's terrible. I want to… do terrible things, but I can't… I can't…"
"Natanial said nothing bad would happen to me. He'd protect me."
"That soldier up there? He's a mercenary," Roh scoffed.
"He's looked after me–"
"Has he? If you had not believed that, where would you be right now?"
Anavha sat back on the bed, distraught. He would have been home in Aaldia, cooking or curled up in bed with Nusi. "He said I was free. It was my own decision."
"Well, I'd make another decision on your own, now," Roh said. "I need to find a way out of here." He went to the window, peered out. Tried to shove his shoulder through, but it was far too narrow. "Do you have any extra clothes?" he asked. "Maybe I could–"
"I can get us out," Anavha said.
"How?"
"I just… I don't know where we'd go. Home, for me, but… people are falling from the sky. Natanial said if I joined the Empress, I could stop it. Now, I don't know…"
"Listen," Roh said, and he took Anavha by the shoulders and peered at him. He was a beautiful boy, Anavha saw, sad and broken, with large eyes and long lashes, skin dry and flaking from too much stress and sun, but very pretty nonetheless. Anavha knew very well what those with power did to pretty boys. "There's a Dhai resistance. You know who the Dhai are? Before the Tai Mora came–"
There was a shout from the hall. The sound of pounding feet.
"Where exactly are these Dhai?" Anavha asked.
"What? I… I don't know. The Woodland? Somewhere."
"I can only take us to places I've been," Anavha said. Roh's frantic movement and warbling tone made him anxious. "Well, sometimes I end up… elsewhere, but that's if something is wrong. But I've gotten very good at taking myself places I've been."
Roh ceased his pacing. "Where in Dhai have you been?"
"We arrived on the plateau, out there, near the camp with all the soldiers in it."
"Directly onto the plateau?" Roh gaped. "You… you opened a wink? You're an omajista!"
Anavha winced. He still did not like that word. "That's what they say. I suppose so. I can't get to other worlds, though, just… this one. Places here."
Roh went to the wall and pressed his forehead against it. Then his palms. He murmured something in Dhai that had the reverent tone of a prayer of thanks.
"All right," Roh said. "Can you take us to the plateau?"
"But, there are soldiers there and–"
"From the plateau, you'll be able to see into the valley, right?"
"I… suppose, yes."
"Then you can wink us into the valley. And from the valley you can see–"
"Woods. Oh!" Anavha considered that. "You are very clever."
"I know," Roh said. More shouting from the hall. "Can you hurry? What do you need from me?"
"I don't… I'm not sure…"
"You can always come back," Roh said. "Please. I can't."
His eyes were so very beautiful. Anavha nodded. He stepped away from the bed and concentrated on the terrible Tordinian poetry, as Coryana, the teacher Natanial introduced him to, had taught him, and as he had practiced all this time.
The air split in two. On the other side was the broken yellow grass of the plateau, and a sea of soldiers inside the temporary barracks and outbuildings just a few paces distant.
Roh said, "Do we just–"
The door burst open.
Anavha gasped. The wink wavered.
Roh heaved himself forward and tumbled through the rent in reality. Fell face first on the grass on the other side.
Two of the Tai Mora guards pushed into the room. Anavha leapt after Roh. Grabbed him and helped him up. They began to run across the grass, Anavha half-pulling him.
Roh grimaced, clearly in terrible pain. "Close the wink! Close the wink!"
But Anavha was too startled. He kept running. The guards came through after them, and behind the guards, someone else, a hulking beast of a hairy shadow.
Saradyn pushed the two Tai Mora out of the way and began to gain on Anavha and Roh.
"What does he want?" Anavha hissed.
"Open another!" Roh pointed. "The valley, there, open another!"
"I can't see–"
But the edge of the plateau came into abrupt focus. They were moving too fast now. Anavha heard the thundering of Saradyn's great feet. The heaving of his breath. The Tai Mora, too, were coming. More and more pouring from the wink that Anavha was still too flustered to close. He needed to let go of the threads, release the… Oh no, they were at the edge, he needed another wink. Concentrate, concentrate, another spell…
"Anavha!" Roh yelled.
They came to the very edge of the plateau. Anavha gripped Roh's hand tightly and bent the world.
A wink appeared, a jagged slash opening there at the edge of the plateau. Anavha and Roh crashed through it, so fast and hard they smeared up dirt and loam on the other side. Anavha lost his breath.
"Close it!" Roh gasped, crawling forward. "Close it and open another!"
Anavha could see nothing but dirt and trees. Heard the rush of the river. He could not get his bearings.
"Anavha!" Roh pulled at him.
Anavha rolled over just in time to see Saradyn leap through the wink after them. Saradyn babbled something at them. Anavha tried to concentrate, tried to untangle the threads of Oma holding the wink open. At least a dozen Tai Mora were rushing toward them across the plateau, only paces away now.
"Anavha!" Roh tried to heave himself up.
Saradyn took hold of him. Roh squealed, but Saradyn only righted him and said something, something that made Roh's eyes big.
Anavha concentrated on the wink. Focused on the little breaths of red mist. The first of the Tai Mora was close enough that he could see the sweat on her face. The hunger in her gaze. She lifted her wrist, and a willowthorn sword spiraled out, coming straight for Anavha's face.
"Let it go!" Roh said.
The wink went out.
A severed hunk of the willowthorn sword landed at Anavha's feet. He collapsed in the dirt, panting. "That was–"
Saradyn yanked him up. "Go," he said, in Dorinah.
"We need to keep moving," Roh said. "How many more of those can you do?"
"I… don't know," Anavha said. "I'm dizzy. I need to… eat."
"Away," Saradyn said, pointing up the hill.
"I… can't," Roh said.
Saradyn gestured for him. "Up!" he said.
Roh clambered onto Saradyn's back. Anavha was a little jealous. He was so tired of traveling.
"Just to the top," Roh said. "They will be coming down after us. We can rest over that rise, until you get your strength back."
Anavha found that his hands were trembling, but Saradyn was already moving, carrying Roh, and he feared being left behind. Anavha glanced back once, at the severed bit of willowthorn in the mud.
By the time they reached the top of the rise, Anavha was out of breath. They hunkered down on the other side. Saradyn hummed something, some Tordinian song no doubt. Roh rubbed at his own knees, wincing.
"How much do you know about your friend Natanial?" Roh asked.
"He helped me, that's all."
"How did you meet him?"
"That was… well, it was complicated."
"How do you know Saradyn?"
Anavha grimaced. "That's also complicated. It's a very awful story."
"We have a few minutes."
"Well… it was… a misunderstanding. Natanial kidnapped me and took me to Saradyn. Saradyn used to be some kind of king, in Tordin. Now he's very mad though."
"Lot of that going around," Roh said. He eyed Saradyn. "What's all this he says about ghosts?"
"He can tell who is from this world and who isn't, that's what Natanial said. He can see people's… ghosts. Images from their past, I guess."
"Natanial kidnapped you and you still trusted him?"
"He… let me go."
Roh shook his head. Muttered something in what was probably Dhai. "Let me know when you can open a wink again. We have to keep going."
"But where?" Anavha asked. "No one knows where these rebel Dhai are, do they? If they did, the Empress would have found them."
"I have a good idea we won't need to find them," Roh said, "They'll find us. But it's likely to be north, near the coast. That's where I'd have gone, if I were Lilia."
"Who is this Lilia?"
Roh looked away, off into the woods. "She was my friend."
"Is she still?"
"I don't know. But it's worth the risk to find out. Are you ready?"
Anavha closed his eyes and reached for the burning thread of Oma. Took a breath. Held the power beneath his skin.
"Yes," he said.
|
(Worldbreaker Saga 3) The Broken Heavens
|
Kameron Hurley
|
[
"fantasy",
"LGBT",
"science fiction fantasy"
] |
[] |
Chapter 22
|
"I was supposed to protect him," Natanial said, slogging his way through the rolling grass of the plateau, the jistas and guards from the temple just ahead of him, Monshara grumbling beside him. "Now he's gone, Saradyn's gone, that little boy is gone. That's not on me. That's on your empress and her temple's terrible security."
"She's going to be pissed," Monshara said. "That boy could traverse through the temple like a specter."
"I should never have brought him," Natanial said. "I failed him. I went after him for foolish, selfish reasons. Just like Zezili."
"Maybe he's just gone home," Monshara said. "I'm the one here looking like a fool. She'll want my head."
"This is such a fucking nightmare."
The Empress herself met them in the front garden. She was yelling at the jistas about securing the temple against omajistas. When her gaze found Natanial she stabbed a finger at him.
"Here we go," Monshara muttered.
"The two of you," Kirana said, "come with me to the Sanctuary. Right now." She brought two soldiers with her, ones he recognized from upstairs, and several more he took to be jistas of one type or another.
The Sanctuary was a marvel; Natanial hadn't seen anything like it in all his travels. The great dome of glass filtered the light of the double helix of the suns. The bloody red eye of Oma stared down balefully, precisely centered over the stained-glass representation of the satellite that had been worked into the ceiling… how long ago? Another cycle ago, perhaps, many cycles, the first cycle, if the rumors were to be believed. They had built these temples knowing exactly where Oma would appear in the sky.
Altars to the Dhai gods, the satellites, still ringed the central pedestal. Stone lanterns circled each altar. There was an ancient library here, filling the eastern stretch of the room, and dozens of tables piled with books and papers and diagrams.
An old man waited for them, hands stuffed in the pockets of his tunic.
"Empress," he said immediately, and made to cross to her, but she held up her hand.
"Hold there, Dasai," she said. "Close the doors, Monshara."
She did, leaving the four of them alone in the great space, their voices echoing. Natanial was very aware of his own breath. He let his gaze travel up the green skin of the temple to the domed glass again, shielding his eyes from Oma's light. The other satellites were visible, Tira and Sina, at the outer edges of the dome.
"You all brought a good many messes into my temple," Kirana said. "All at once."
"I apologize," Dasai said, "but as you can see, the boy can converse with these temples if we–"
"I get it," Kirana said. "Monshara, you can see you're not the only one I'm pissed at. That boy shouldn't have been able to channel. Suari should have put a Song of Unmaking on him. That's his fuckup and I'll have words with him. Dasai, I want you out of here. Pack up your little friends and get back to Caisau. I've no need of you here."
"But Empress, this boon–"
"You brought me nothing," she spit. The temple seemed to tremble at that, but it may have been Natanial's imagination. "You are creeping perilously close here to being suspect. A year it took you to get here, after you knew what he was?"
"It's very complicated. I–"
"You have your own little flesh deals, yes," the Empress said. "I know about your scheming in the north. I know that you're looking to consolidate power. I've no time for that. Madah? Oravan? Light him up please."
"This is–" Dasai sputtered.
Madah flicked her wrist, releasing a willowthorn sword that wrapped around her wrist and pressed back against Dasai. She maneuvered him away from the tables.
The air heaved.
Dasai burst into flames. He shrieked, once, long and loud, bringing his arms up even as the flesh seared away, curling his arms into long claws. The body collapsed, still simmering, mostly charred bone and papery flesh, sizzling fat. The smell made Natanial's eyes water.
"And you," Kirana said, rounding on Natanial and Monshara.
Monshara said, "I have ever been loyal. You know that."
"I do," Kirana said, folding her arms. "It's why you're alive. But you," she said, jabbing a finger at Natanial. "You I don't know. Monshara says it was your idea to bring that boy here, and the old man."
"I honestly thought it would help your campaign."
"And why do you want to help me, Tordinian? Or are you Aaldian?"
"A bit of both," Natanial said. "I'm a mercenary. That's true. I like to align myself with the strongest players."
"And that's me."
"Yes."
"And when it's not any longer?"
Natanial gave a small shrug. Monshara grimaced, as if he had just agreed to become a human torch, and maybe he had.
"You want to work for me?" Kirana said. "You ward yourself to me, or I light you up like I did Dasai."
Natanial peered at the smoking ruin of the old man, considering his options. He had chosen to put himself here, at her mercy, so he could survive until the end of all this. But in return, who would she have him destroy next?
"I want to find the boy, the omajista," Natanial said. "I want to live through this breaking of the world, and I care enough for him that I'd like him to live, as well. Let me do that, and I'll do anything else you'd like."
"If he's intelligent, he winked himself off to Aaldia or Tordin," she said. "Be happy you're rid of him. An omajista one cannot control is worse than no omajista at all. Trust me in that. I can offer you protection, but frankly, running after that boy would be a fool's errand."
Natanial gazed up at Oma again, turning over his limited options. Bound was better than dead. He had made worse pairings. Saradyn had not been his finest moment, either.
"All right," Natanial said. "I'd like to bring my soldiers over. Pay them, and they'll be as loyal as I will."
"Fine," Kirana said. "With Daorian in hand, both of you are worth more to me scouring the Woodland for a few… key individuals I have been seeking for some time. A child, calling herself Tasia. And a woman called Yisaoh. Both Dhai. I have portraits for you. We've found that it's better to have small but well-trained groups working in the Woodland. We've met nothing but disaster trying to move larger units. Those fucking plants eat them like candy."
"Tordin has similar issues with plant life," Natanial said. "I can help Monshara and her soldiers navigate the Woodland."
"Excellent," Kirana said. "So you'll be useful after all. Let's get you warded, and get you your soldiers. What is a useful mercenary without his soldiers?"
As the Empress's omajista advanced to ward his loyalty to the Empress into his flesh, Natanial took a knee, and wondered if he would ever get the smell of burning flesh from his nose.
|
(Worldbreaker Saga 3) The Broken Heavens
|
Kameron Hurley
|
[
"fantasy",
"LGBT",
"science fiction fantasy"
] |
[] |
Chapter 23
|
Zezili snapped away the remaining bone branches. She had to pull out the bones that had skewered Lilia's shoulder and belly. The wounds did not bleed out, only oozed a greenish sap or pus. Zezili supposed the tree preferred to preserve its prey and feed off it slowly, like a spider.
"Hey, can you hear me?" Zezili asked. "I need you awake. I don't know where the fuck I am."
"It's fine," Lilia muttered. "It's fine."
Zezili spotted a thin line of blood on Lilia's forearm – she must have created it when she pulled her down.
She had a strange compulsion to clear it away. She pressed her lips to the wound. Sucked at the blood. The blood came away sweet. So sweet! Sweeter and more delightful than anything she had ever tasted before.
She pulled herself away from the wound, suddenly dizzy. She scrambled further from Lilia, overcome with revulsion. Had the tree done something to the blood? Zezili headed for the trees. She got eight paces before she felt the pain in her sternum again. The urge to go back, the feeling that if she continued on her own, she would die horribly, rent limb from limb.
"Fuck you!" Zezili yelled at the sky. But no one answered. Not Rhea, not her daughters, certainly not the woozy Dhai girl.
"This is a rude fucking joke!" Zezili yelled. She picked up a skull from the field of bones and threw it into the woods. "Fuck you! Fuck you! I chose to fucking die!" She threw a few more until the gesture was no longer cathartic. Then went back to the girl.
She yanked Lilia up, as easily as if she were a bag of yams, and headed into the woods with her. Zezili wasn't thirsty, but the girl probably would be, and the wounds could do with a wash. Bonded, were they? Well, she couldn't just let her die then, she supposed.
Zezili sensed water before she saw it: a metallic taste at the back of her throat. Had she been able to sense water like that before? Surely not.
As she turned to head toward it, she noted a movement at the corner of her vision. Two young men, Dhai probably, as they did not wear armor. They bore plain metal blades, not infused weapons, which was something.
"Who are you?" one of them shouted, older, bearded, the one in charge. "You put that girl back! She's no concern of yours."
Zezili placed Lilia back on the ground. She could not help it: a grin split her face.
They must have understood that grin, because they bolted from her.
Zezili pursued them, humming all the while, a neat little ditty from some puppet show. The men slid in the mud. One knocked into a tree. She caught them easily, in three paces, before her sternum even began to ache.
She took the oldest by the beard and headbutted him. His eyes crossed. He fell. She broke his neck cleanly. Looked about for the other one.
He was scrambling up rugged terrain backwards, sword out, sweating profusely. "What are you?" he said. "Wh– What?"
"I don't know," Zezili said. She grabbed the flat blade of the sword and twisted it from his hands. A quick flip of the sword, a thrust, and she skewered him neatly through the heart.
He spit blood. Shuddered. She twisted the blade. Blood spurted across his chest. The blood was so very beautiful.
Zezili straddled the body and pressed her hands into the blood and brought it to her lips. It smelled divine. She tasted it, and like the girl's blood it was sweet. So very, very delicious. She cut the man's jugular and cupped her hands beneath the wound, grinning at every flesh spurt of blood. She drank the blood like water until her belly was full and her whole body tingled.
Only when sated did she become aware of her bloody hands. Her sticky face. "What the fuck am I doing?" she muttered. But the blood had made her feel more… alive. Strong. She squeezed the man's neck, sending more blood into her cupped palm, and took it back up to Lilia. She cradled the girl's head with her other arm, and brought the blood to her lips.
"Hey, you hear me?" Zezili said. "Drink."
She wet Lilia's lips with the blood, made her sip at it. Lilia coughed once, grimaced, but then she drank it down as greedily as Zezili had.
A beat, no more than a moment, and Lilia opened her eyes, gaze clear now, not muddled. At the sight of Zezili, Lilia's eyes widened.
"Tira," she breathed, and blood wet Lilia's own chin. "What have you done?"
"You feel better?" Zezili asked. "You here?"
"You look… like an animal. Did you murder–"
"Are you well or not?"
"I… yes… did you…?" Lilia touched her finger to her lips; the finger came away bloody. "Did you feed me… blood?"
"It worked, didn't it?"
Lilia turned over and spit.
"How are your wounds?" Zezili asked. She checked them; they were still pus-filled and oozing, but not bleeding out. "Not a cure-all, then. We have to get you some real care. Where the fuck can we go? You've made a lot of enemies."
"I've made enemies? You made far more enemies than I did."
"Yeah, well, this isn't Dorinah we're in, is it? What day is it? What month?"
"I only know the Dhai months."
"And?"
Lilia told her.
Zezili sat back on her heels. It felt like she'd been punched. "I've… been gone… a year?"
"Your face is different. You look… younger. No scars."
Zezili pressed her hands to her smooth face. She had a dim memory of gazing into a mirror after the cats came at her, her swollen right eye, the jagged rent, the lopsided smile, and her fingers… Rhea, she had lost fingers. No, more than that. Saradyn. Saradyn had taken her hand. But this girl knew nothing of that. They had last seen each other in the other world, when Lilia broke the mirror, yes. She must be talking about her other scars, the battle scars, the ones that Zezili had borne so long she had thought herself born with them.
She pulled her hands away and stared at them again. They were whole. No scars. No missing digits. Two smooth, perfect hands.
"This is a miracle," Zezili said. "A fucking Rhea-blessed miracle. What am I?"
"I don't know."
"Someone brought me to you… in a box? That's what… some woman said, when I woke."
"Emlee? Yes. You were supposed to be some great warrior, from Kalinda."
"I don't know who Kalinda is."
"I'm not sure how she found you, or why she was looking. I'm sorry. I… didn't know. I just… needed allies."
"Whatever way you could get them."
Lilia nodded.
"It got you stuck up a bone tree," Zezili said.
"I don't regret any of it."
That was the dumbest thing Zezili had heard the girl say yet. "Then you're a fool."
"You said you want to kill the Tai Mora."
"Who doesn't?"
"I can help you, like I said. We need to go west, until we reach the sea. Then north. There's a great temple there. Something that can help us push them all back to their world."
"Their world is dying."
"Yes."
"You intend to just… send them all back. Murder them all the way they've murdered all of you?"
"You have a better idea? Where did you get all this blood?" Lilia gestured at Zezili's stained face and tunic.
Zezili snarled. "What if it hadn't been me?"
"What do you mean?"
"If it was someone you didn't know. Someone else who wanted to die. Would you have done it?"
"I needed allies."
"You're no better than any of us."
"If you really wanted to die, you could have left me up there. You would have died soon enough."
"I don't know if that was possible. Your blood is delicious, but the idea of murdering you makes me seize up."
"Well, that's a relief."
"Is it? I'm sure it will work the other way. You can't kill me either. If I can ever die. I don't know. That's depressing."
"I'm sorry. I didn't ask how it works."
"Where is the woman who did it?"
"Kalinda? I don't know. I'm sorry."
"No, you aren't."
"Well, maybe I'm not. I needed an ally, and you were a terrible monster. Maybe this is what you deserved."
"Fuck you."
"You're always so angry."
"You aren't?"
"Of course I'm angry. But I don't sit here complaining about it."
"Fine." Zezili stood. Let's get moving."
"You'll come with me?"
"You haven't given me much choice." She tasted the remnants of the sugary blood on her lips, and felt a craving she could not name.
|
(Worldbreaker Saga 3) The Broken Heavens
|
Kameron Hurley
|
[
"fantasy",
"LGBT",
"science fiction fantasy"
] |
[] |
Chapter 24
|
Roh and his companions fled across the Woodland, to the sea. He knew the Woodland more by reputation than experience, and the reality of the snapping, buzzing expanse of them overwhelmed him. On the Saiduan tundra, he could often see all the way to the horizon. Here, each jump brought them into a dense thicket of woods. The massive trees and twisting greenery got him turned around. Anavha had to stop several times to gaze back at where they had come to ensure they really were still heading north. Even the suns were difficult to see, here. The few glimpses of satellites he managed were obfuscated, fuzzy and indistinct.
It was their sixth wink in two days when he finally smelled the brackish promise of the sea. But still no sign of any Dhai, rebels or otherwise.
"We haven't seen anything but plants," Anavha said, shoulders sagging. He began to sit down, but a nest of creeping phlox wept toward him, and he darted away. "Are there any people at all here? Did this wood kill them?"
"I don't know," Roh said. He had given Anavha the same answer four times in the last hour. "Unless you can–"
"No, I'm too tired for more winks. Can we rest?"
"We rested an hour ago. Not yet."
"It's easy for you to say that because you aren't even walking."
"If you think being lugged around is a comfortable way to travel, you are mistaken."
In truth, Roh was relieved to be out in the open air and on his own. He worried often about his ward. Could Dasai use it to track him? To compel him to go back? So far he had noticed nothing different, but that didn't mean anything.
Something flickered ahead. He tried to look around Saradyn's shaggy mane. The man stank terribly.
A bird hooted, unnaturally loud.
Roh tensed, peering into the tree cover ahead of them. A figure came around the nearest bonsa tree, holding an infused everpine weapon ahead of her. More figures slipped from the trees, six of them in all: three small, tawny Dhai and three tall, dark Saiduan.
Saiduan? Roh thought. That was not what he expected at
"We aren't armed!" Roh shouted, and squeezed Saradyn's neck, said to him in Dorinah, "Be still."
A Saiduan woman – taller and older than the rest – stood a little apart from the group. Her hair was knotted against her scalp. She had a broad mouth, deeply lined skin, scarred knuckles… She looked familiar, but Roh's mind refused to place her. Everyone started to blur together, when there were two or three or more of everyone.
"What motley crew is this?" she said in heavily accented Dhai.
"Let me down," Roh told Saradyn.
Saradyn grunted and complied. Roh limped forward, hands out, palms up. "I am Rohinmey Tadisa–"
The woman hissed and spoke rapidly in Saiduan, "No, you're not. Is this some joke?"
"It's not," he said, also in Saiduan.
"Who are these others?" she asked. "You bring them from the north with you?"
"Anavha, an omajista–" When she raised her weapon, Roh shook his head. "He is harmless, but he has a great skill. He can travel by wink – make gates – to anywhere he's been before. The rest of those omajista things… I don't know if he even knows them."
"And the brute?"
"Saradyn. Mad, but he can tell you who's from this world and who isn't."
"How do I know anything you tell me is the truth? By all counts, you should be dead. They killed those Saiduan scholars. I was there."
"Who are you?"
She looked puzzled. "You don't recognize me? Do I look so different, no longer dressed in black? I did cut my hair." She smirked.
"Oma," Roh said. "This isn't–"
"Possible? Perhaps. Yet, here we are."
"I thought you were dead, Shao Maralah."
"It appears we both sought safety by appealing to the sea. Alas, my ships ran aground a few weeks back."
"But… how did you… why…?"
"That is a very long story. First, I need to know you aren't one of them, hiding behind a familiar face."
"I have a ward," he said. "Can you remove it?"
"I already did, the moment my first scout saw you. They can track you with those wards."
"I don't know how to prove who I am," Roh said. "What questions you could–"
"Tell me about Kadaan," Maralah said, and Roh felt heat move up his face.
Maralah laughed. "That will do. Come with us. We could use a few more jistas. We have much to discuss."
The Woodland Dhai camp was too new to appear as if it had grown from the surrounding vegetation. Roh knew very little about the Woodland Dhai, except that they had rejected the prescription that the gifted be taught inside the temples to become religious leaders and teachers. As a rule, the Dhai either sorted out their differences or parted ways, and the Woodland Dhai had lived up in the hills on their own for nearly as long as Hahko and Faith Ahya had been dead and the new Kai established the temples as places of learning for the gifted.
This camp appeared to be a nomadic one. The shelters were all lean-tos wrapped in padded swathes of old bonsa leaves. Woodland Dhai stared at their party as they passed. The older Dhai bore blue tatooed faces and dressed in a motley mix of cast off fibers and animal skins. Unlike the valley Dhai, the Woodland Dhai ate meat. The idea still made Roh a little nauseous. The ground was sandy; the sea lay below them, churning in a dark cove that stretched back and back beneath them. A few Saiduan were walking up and down a winding path long worn into the stone they camped on.
"It leads below, to our ships," Maralah said, following his gaze. "We pulled them into the cavern below, to hide them from the Tai Mora while we work. They are not far from us, here, busy with something they dredged out of the sea. We sleep in the caverns below, but these Woodland Dhai were passing through. I told them they draw too much attention, and they pretend they don't understand my accent."
Anavha kept close behind him, uncertain, gaze downcast. Many of the Dhai here would be able to speak Dorinah, but the predominant languages were Dhai and Saiduan, and he could speak neither. Roh felt a little sorry for him.
"I have news from the temples," Roh said, to Maralah. "I was hoping to find someone who could help us. I heard there were rebel Dhai out here. Thought maybe we could be allies. But these are Woodland Dhai, you said?"
She grimaced. "Yes, you can see their tattoos. And you will see it in how they treat you. They are not fond of valley Dhai any more than Saiduan. Apparently they come here once a year to harvest blue stones from the sea. There are Dhai refugees around, including a camp south of here that wants to partner with us to leave the continent. I'm unsure if they are who you're looking for, though."
"Are you in charge here?"
Maralah laughed at that. "I'm in charge of my people, but certainly not these Woodland Dhai. No one is in charge of them. Some talk louder and are esteemed more. I can point them out to you. But they are at best a bickering collective."
"What are your plans here?"
"To leave. Do you want to eat?"
Roh was indeed hungry, and wanted both food and a bath, but the urgency had overcome him among all these people. He wanted to tell them everything, and see if they could help him puzzle out what the temples had told him.
"Is there…" Roh considered the stories he had heard traveling through Dhai, about a rebel leader with a twisted foot, all dressed in white. "Do you know if there's anyone here called Lilia Sona? Or someone who knows where she is? I heard stories about–"
Maralah came up short. "Lilia Sona. Now that's a name that continues to haunt me."
"You know her?"
"I sent Taigan to Dhai to find a worldbreaker. He hoped it might be her."
"That was you?"
"Yes." She waved a hand. "A lifetime ago. We gathered a number of young people, hoping one of them would turn out to be gifted enough to act as a worldbreaker, once we understood how to harness the power of the satellites when Oma was risen. All that work for nothing. We still ended up–" a darkness passed across her face as she surveyed the cluttered camp, "–still ended up here."
"I don't think it's too late."
"Good for you. I'm out of the business of changing the world. I just want to die old." She conferred with a group of Saiduan. A young Woodland Dhai was with them, thumbs stuck in her belt, parroting back some passable Saiduan.
"I can show them the springs," said the young Woodland Dhai. Her head was shaved, displaying the full breadth of the tattoos that covered her face and scalp. "I'm Naori. I want to work on my Saiduan. And my valley Dhai!"
"Good," Maralah said. "Thank you, Naori. Roh, when you're clean and fed, there's someone else who wants to see you."
"Are you sure there isn't anything we can do now?" Roh asked. "Anavha could–"
"Could what?" Maralah said, coolly. "Take us home? No, I'm sure a soft Dorinah man like him has never been to Saiduan. Yes, I know how traveling gates work, when they are used to travel across this world and not another. Could he take us to where we were going? No. I'm sure he hasn't been to Hrollief either, which is where I pointed those ships before the storms captured us. And I admit I'm annoyed that you have any fight left in you, boy. Let it go."
"But I think… I think we could–"
"Then you are delusional. Drunk on hope." She pointed at Saradyn. "Be sure you wash him, first. He has the stink of a fucking bear." She left them and followed after two more Saiduan woman descending the long tongue of the cavernous pathway that led below.
"Don't mind her," Naori said. "She has struggled a long time. Her people are dead. You knew each other, though? Was she kind to you?"
"She didn't do any of this," Roh said, though he did not gesture to his legs, or his other scars, physical and mental. "Not to me, anyway."
Naori cheerfully showed them around the camp and took them down another well-worn path to a bubbling hot springs. "My people, clan Kosilatu, we come here every year for bluestones, and to soak in the hot springs."
"Does your clan… Do you know about rebel Dhai living here? Valley Dhai? Refugees?"
"Oh yes," Naori said. "There are several camps, but like us, most of them move."
Roh sighed. The faint smell of sulfur permeated the air around the hot springs. Saradyn pulled off a boot, filling the air with a far grimmer stench, and dipped his foot in.
"Ahh!" Saradyn said, and began to strip off his grimy clothing without any urging.
"I can find some clean clothes," Naori said. She laughed at Saradyn. "Him, though? I don't know. He's too broad for anything I have. I'll see."
Roh stripped, heedless of the others, but Anavha hung back. "What is it?" Roh asked. "Don't you want to get clean?"
"When you're through," Anavha said, face reddening. Roh found that amusing. Was it something about being Dorinah?
Naori met them back at the camp with clean clothes for Roh and Anavha, both Saiduan cuts, so they were too long. Roh helped Anavha with the hems.
There was tea, and mashed tubers, a vegetable broth of leek and early spring shoots. Much of it was tasteless, but it was filling, and that's all Roh wanted.
"What are the Saiduan doing here?" he asked Naori. "She said they were going somewhere else?"
"To Hrollief," Naori said. "They were some of the last of the Saiduan, but their ship washed up here last month."
"What of the rest of the Dhai?"
Naori gestured to the woods around them. "There are many camps. Some are resisting. I heard Catori Meyna and Yisaoh lead a good number of them. Maralah says they will meet her here and head south to Hrollief as well."
"What about the Kai?"
"We had thought him dead."
"Had?"
"There's been a rumor he's taken back up with Catori Meyna, and Yisaoh. I got the impression the Saiduan were bickering about that. My Saiduan is still… so-so."
Roh watched Maralah, who was working at the other side of the camp, helping three other Saiduan heave a small felled tree back down through the looping path to the sea.
"Maralah was one of the most powerful sanisi," Roh said. "She was… at the right hand of the Patron. It's just… strange to see her like this."
"She is as human as you or I," Naori said. "She bleeds and sweats, I can tell you that. My clan understands this." She snorted. "All Woodland Dhai understand this. Power, titles, things… we are each of us only a disaster away from losing everything. Best to live without anything. Enjoy each moment as it takes you."
It was evening before Roh got a chance to speak to Maralah again. He had fallen asleep after eating, and it was well into dusk when he woke; the largest of the three moons, Ahmur, was full. The smaller moons, Mur and Zini, were only slivers in the night sky. The satellites were more difficult to see at night, as if the suns' rays illuminated them, made them brighter during the day the way they made the suns bright at night.
The sound of the sea was loud, but not loud enough to drown out Saradyn's snoring, beside him. Anavha sat near one of the big fires, where a trio of Dhai were telling stories. The firelight played across Anavha's eager face. He was rapt, like a child, though he probably couldn't understand any of it. Maralah stood near the fire, apart from the rest, drinking something from a cup made from a hollowed out seed the size of Roh's fist.
Roh stretched and limped over to her. The night was cool. He rubbed his arms absently.
"You're awake," she said. She offered him the cup. "Aatai?"
Roh shook his head. "Where did you get it?"
"We brought cases of it with us. Only a few left, though, at the rate my people drink it."
"How many came with you?"
Maralah gazed at the fire. "We had fifty-seven, when we got on the ship. We have thirty now."
"I'm sorry."
She drank deeply from the cup. "War of attrition. The Tai Mora have won it. We have plenty of room for your people on the boats, though. I suppose there's that. Imagine, a little settlement somewhere of Saiduan and Dhai, trying to make some life together. Who would have dreamed it?"
"You should know that we found the book," Roh said. "The one you and the other Saiduan were looking for, that tells us how to use the temples to close the ways between worlds, and… much more, besides. Luna and I translated it."
Maralah continued to stare at the fire. The reflection of the flames flickered in her eyes. "It doesn't matter now."
"It may not matter to Saiduan, but it matters to Dhai."
She said nothing.
Roh gazed across the fire to the rest of the camp. Low voices from the side of the Woodland Dhai. The twang of some stringed instrument from the Saiduan circle of makeshift tents. A few dozen. All Maralah was able to save. No wonder she was bitter.
"Do you really want to leave all that power to the Tai Mora?" Roh asked. "The power of the heavens themselves?"
"I won't be here to see what they do with it."
"Do you think there's a place in this world, or any of them, that she can't reach?"
"I'm not a threat to anyone."
"Neither were the Dhai."
She rounded on him. Her dark gaze was piercing, and he saw the sanisi in her, then: the old Maralah – the one he had first spied dancing in the courtyard with Kadaan – the woman who had commanded great armies and had the ear of the most powerful man in the world.
"You don't know what you're talking about," she said. "You were always an arrogant child."
"They need a key, a guide, and a worldbreaker," Roh said. "All focused on that fifth temple they dredged up north of here. I can get a small party to the People's Temple from any other temple."
"You need more than that," Maralah said. "I've seen the diagrams. The Dhai, Meyna, showed them to me."
"Oh," Roh said. "You… but if you know, then–"
"Who is this key, Roh? And a worldbreaker? And when you have them, remember that every temple needs four jistas, and a fifth to stand at the center of them and act as some kind of living conduit. How many jistas do you have? I haven't kept up with what your new Kai, or Empress, or whatever she calls herself has been doing, but your people here have. She's filling those temples with her jistas and putting all of her pieces in place. You are already too late. Her people are there."
"But–"
"Be reasonable," Maralah said. "I know it's newer for you, but understand that I've been through what you have. I've seen my country destroyed, its people decimated. I had hope once too. It nearly destroyed all of us."
Maralah shifted her attention to two Saiduan men making their way over with another bottle of aatai. "Ah, here we are," Maralah said. "Look who I found for you, Kadaan."
At that name, a thread of icy fire bit through Roh's belly. He stared.
The men came into the flicker light of the circle of fire, and there he was – Kadaan Soagaan, whom Roh had last seen fighting for his life in Shoratau. The Shadow of Caisau. By all rights, he should have been a ghost, too.
Kadaan was thinner, wiry, and his hair was much longer. A new scar puckered the skin under his left eye.
"You are a sight, puppy," Kadaan said. Roh's mouth went dry. He had no idea what to say.
Maralah glanced from one to the other and said, "You look like men who could use some aatai." When Roh still didn't respond, she took hold of his shoulder, squeezed it, and bent over him. She whispered, "Oma is fickle, and grants us few choices to save what we love. Stop fighting, Roh. Stop fighting and live again."
|
(Worldbreaker Saga 3) The Broken Heavens
|
Kameron Hurley
|
[
"fantasy",
"LGBT",
"science fiction fantasy"
] |
[] |
Chapter 25
|
Zezili hated everything about the woods. The insects. The loamy smell. The crashing and chirping of the birds and tree gliders. She itched and sweated, but was still not thirsty, and hadn't had to pee or shit the entire three days they had trekked through the woods. Maybe that was why she wasn't paying attention to her footing anymore.
They had come to the edge of the Woodland the day before, and were following the great ridge of the plateau where the trees and brush had been thinned by storms and poor soil. The sea smelled of death, and brought with it a cool wind, but this far up, it didn't bother Zezili much.
Lilia walked much more slowly, so Zezili paused to let her catch up for the hundredth time. She didn't remember where exactly she put her feet, only that when Lilia got near enough, she pushed off on one foot to begin again, and the ground crumbled beneath her.
"Fuck!" Zezili yelled. She reached instinctively for Lilia. Caught her sleeve.
The two of them slid down the ravine together, rushing toward the beach. They landed in a tangle, covered in sandy soil and rocks. When the rolling stopped, Zezili found herself dizzy and damp. She raised her head and saw a marshy grassland, and sand beneath her fingers. The stink of the sea was much worse here. She stood, wiped herself off, and peered over the grassy dunes. She caught the sparkle of the wine dark seas.
Lilia moaned.
Zezili helped her up. "You alive? Anything broken?"
"I'm leaking," Lilia said, pulling her hand away from the oozing green pus at her shoulder."
"I think we're close," Zezili said, "if you were right about–"
"Oh," Lilia said. She gazed north, out past Zezili's shoulder.
Zezili turned.
A thousand paces up the beach, a massive, decaying beast lay on its side, like an old snoozing dog. The wind was blowing in from the sea, but it was only a matter of time before they caught the stink of it.
"Is that recent?" Lilia asked.
"How would I know?"
"I just wondered."
"It's not rotten, not bleached from the suns. Not picked clean. I guess it's new."
"How can you see that?
"Easily. You can't?"
Lilia frowned.
They walked along the beach, keeping to the less sandy soil near the edge of the cliff because it was easier to navigate. The wind picked up, sending cool, lashing mist at them. Zezili didn't mind it, but after a time, Lilia was trembling with cold. Zezili wanted to offer something – a blanket? But they had nothing. Lilia's lips were flaking and parched, though she did not complain.
Zezili realized how ill-equipped they were for a journey of any length. How long had it been since Lilia ate anything? Zezili had had nothing since the blood, and she still felt strong, though there was a pang of longing when she thought about how sweet the blood had been.
"Maybe there's something worth eating in that carcass," Zezili said.
Lilia make a retching sound and spit up a little bile.
"You don't know. Come on." Zezili knew things were bad when she felt like the optimist in the group.
They made it three more paces before Lilia collapsed. It was all very sudden. Zezili stood over her, and Lilia was completely out. Zezili sighed then simply picked her up and carried on.
She drew closer and closer to the dead thing, until she could make out the curve of a great harbor carved into the cliffs just behind it. The salty spray of the waves kept churning up to the mouth of the cave and then stopping, spraying upward as if meeting some invisible resistance. Some jista illusion? Perhaps.
Soon she found footsteps along the beach, coming from the direction of the curved harbor. If she squinted, she could just see a few dark shapes moving on top of the cliff. She paused just as three figures appeared from the mouth of the cave, seemingly from thin air. They scrambled across the broken stone, heading toward her. From a distance, she could not make out if they were Dhai or Tai Mora. Surely they were too tall and dark for either?
Three was not too many. She could murder them all if she had to. But what she needed was water for her annoying little ward.
As they caught sight of her, they reached for weapons. Infused blades. The air pressure remained stable. Not jistas, then.
"I need help!" Zezili called in Dorinah, which was likely useless, but she hoped the tone would carry. "I need help. Water?" She curled her lip when they continued to look confused. She went on, in Dhai, "Water? Not armed."
The figures were a mix of people – two Saiduan and a Dhai, all bundled against the cool weather. The Dhai moved ahead of the others. Carrying a body, perhaps, made up for her terrible accent. She was clearly someone in distress.
The Dhai took Lilia from her. Zezili tried to tell him it was fine, no, she could do it, but honestly, it was good to have her hands free. Her stomach ached briefly as Lilia moved away, but they did not go far, and Zezili continued to follow. "Water? Food, probably. Oh, a bone tree! You know–"
"We know about bone trees," the man said, in Dorinah.
"I can speak Dhai too," Zezili said.
He narrowed his eyes. His gaze swept the beach. "Just the two of you?"
"Yes."
"Come, follow us."
Zezili kept her mouth shut and followed them along the coast and back into the curve of the rocky harbor. The closer she got to the invisible barrier that broke the waves, the clearer it was that it was a jista-created thing. When she stepped through it, she came into a deep, cold cavern. Two battered ships rested in the back of the cave where the heavy stones had been beaten to fine gravel. A jet of light pierced the gloom, projected from a break in the cavern ceiling that illuminated a path worn into the rear of the cave that went up and up and up to what she assumed was a camp, above.
The Dhai took her past the great ships. The sound of hammering and hauling, the scrape of leather on stone, filled the cavern. The air here was heavier; jistas must be working somewhere inside the ships.
They climbed the path at the back of the cave and came up into the light. A scattering of tents stood amid a stand of young bonsa trees. There were clearly two camps – one closer to the woods that was mostly Dhai, and another, scrappier camp made of tattered old sails and scrounged wood that mainly housed Saiduan. Interesting. Possibly these were among the last Saiduan still alive in the world.
The Dhai brought Lilia to an open-air tent on the Dhai side of the camp, one where several other patients were clearly convalescing. Yet it was a Saiduan who came up to them and gestured to an empty cot, said to Zezili in Dhai, "What happened?"
"Bone tree."
The woman showed her teeth. "We've had a few of those. I'm amazed she's still alive. Do you need anything? You look–" she gave Zezili a searching stare, "–well. You seem very well, actually."
Zezili was taken aback at the kindness. No weapons. No obvious jistas menacing her. If they had an illusionary ward below, they were certainly fearful of outsiders. But not her, apparently. Or Lilia.
"I'm good. Great. But she's… She needs to be all right."
"Is she your lover?"
"What? Oh, fuck, no. I hate her."
"Oh. Um. All right, well, come and have some tea. I'll attend her."
Zezili walked over to the next tent where a long table was set up. Three fires blazed nearby, one with tea and two with some kind of bubbling stew. She didn't want either and still found it bizarre no one here had interrogated her yet. Maybe they were all busy working on the ship. Maybe she didn't look dangerous? The second idea bothered her. Did she not look dangerous anymore, with her clear skin and lack of scars and all her limbs in place? She wondered if she could find a mirror. Zezili sat at the table where a few Dhai were having tea. They tried to make conversation, but she didn't want tea and she didn't want to talk.
"You know where I can find a mirror?" she asked.
"The infirmary," one said.
"Maralah may have one," said another.
"Who's Maralah?"
"Tall Saiduan woman, older. Very growly. Makes a face like this." The man scrunched up his face as if he tasted something sour. The others laughed.
Zezili didn't want to get too far away from Lilia. The trouble with not being used to pain and discomfort anymore was that when it came, it bothered her more than it probably should have.
She wandered back to the infirmary instead, and asked the Saiduan doctor for a mirror.
The woman returned with a palm-sized mirror framed in silver. It had once had a handle, but it had been broken or seared off.
Zezili held the mirror back as far as she could and scrutinized her face. She barely recognized herself. Some younger version of who she had been stared back, all soft skin – hardly a wrinkle or a crease, and certainly no scars. The Empress of Dorinah's cats had left her with a monstrous visage, and seeing herself as she had been when she was newly recruited into the woman's army brought with it a wash of both good and terrible memories. Her marriage to Anavha. The fights with her sisters over him. The estate the Empress granted her, and the dajians who were as useful to her as her dogs. Daolyn. What had ever happened to Daolyn, that eager little gem of a dajian? She had made the best coats.
Lost in memories, she hardly noticed the image passing behind her: a tumble of brown hair, a handsome curve of a familiar face.
Anavha.
Zezili closed her eyes. Opened them. There, staring back at her in the mirror, was Anavha. Tall and still very thin, bearded now, but hardly enough to hide who he was. He looked freshly washed. Big brown eyes. They widened as she met his look in the mirror.
I am imagining things, Zezili thought, but she turned anyhow, her heart catching.
And there was Anavha.
She opened her mouth, but no sound came out. What was there to say? How was this possible?
He took a step back. That couldn't be right. Why would he fear her? He was hers. Like the dogs, like the dajians… Dajians like Lilia, like these people who had taken her in and fed her, more fool them. Right?
Anavha gaped. His face flushed. He grabbed at his coat, as if trying to shield himself from her.
"It's all right," Zezili said. She held out her right hand, her perfect right hand, good as new, as unmarred and far softer than it had been on their wedding day.
"No!" Anavha said, and he ran.
Zezili's heart ached.
|
(Worldbreaker Saga 3) The Broken Heavens
|
Kameron Hurley
|
[
"fantasy",
"LGBT",
"science fiction fantasy"
] |
[] |
Chapter 26
|
Natanial had chosen his side, mostly freely. But choosing and being contented in that choice were very different things. While he had been unable to sleep since the Empress of Tai Mora had warded him to ensure his loyalty, Otolyn had snored softly and serenely ever since crossing over with his force of fighters. The Empress had access to more jistas, many of them loyal to a woman called Gian. The extra jistas meant more traveling from woodland hill to woodland dale, popping to and from areas where they had limited intelligence about a Dhai presence.
Natanial was not keen on stealing or murdering children, but the Empress's orders were precise, and he understood her reasoning, even if he didn't agree with it.
"A woman and a child," Monshara had said after they left the Empress's presence. "She didn't tell you it's her woman, and her child."
"I don't understand."
"Shadows," Monshara said. "She wants us to find them so she can kill them and bring her version over."
"Surely she's had any number of people pursing them?"
"Of course. But we have good intelligence now. A captive rebel from Tira's Temple who broke in an interrogation."
"The first to break?"
"Of course not. Just the first to break who actually knew something. Biggest camp we're clearing yet."
Natanial stood with her now in a slight clearing as a new pair of winks opened, giving their forces a view of a few simple tents and the old, scattered remains of large bonfires. It certainly didn't look like over a thousand people lived there. How they were supposed to root out a single woman and child from this rats' nest was a mystery, but Monshara had taken charge of this one.
"They're underground," Monshara said. "That's what the intelligence says."
"You going to drown them out?" Natanial asked.
"No, no, Natanial. We'll burn them out, like rats."
Natanial could not help but wonder if Anavha was somewhere there, huddled underground with the unwashed refugee Dhai. If he was, there was a good chance he could save himself. The Empress had been right, though. Anavha was not a complete fool; he would have gone home, to Aaldia. Natanial certainly hoped so.
"Not very sporting, is it?" Otolyn, his second, said from behind them. She was still on the other side, waiting for her own wink to open. She was due at the opposite end of the camp where they had found a secondary exit. She still carried that damn Dorinah head with her, like a talisman, dangling from the back of her mount.
"Hold the commentary," Natanial said.
"This better pay a lot," Otolyn said.
"When the fire starts, you'll smell it," Monshara called back. "Kill them as they come up for air."
"Here we go," Otolyn said, and moved away from the frame of the wink and toward her own squad.
Natanial moved left, and Monshara went right; their respective forces joined them, spreading out quickly over the ground of the clearing. The jistas stepped into the circle made by their two forces: two sinajistas and a tirajista. The response from the Dhai came quickly, far more quickly than Natanial had anticipated.
A trembling wave of tumbling vines erupted from the ground. Even as Natanial reined his bear back, the Tai Mora sinajistas were countering, sending waves of flame into the writhing plant life. Smoke billowed into the air, caught up in the tree canopy. Bits of ashy leaves rained over them.
An onslaught of arrows fell from the trees, one wave, then a second. The sinajistas burned them out of the air, but a few got through. One took their tirajista in the shoulder, and she went down.
"Should have brought more jistas," Natanial muttered.
Monshara called another wave forward from a new wink gaping at the center of their forces. Six more jistas moved onto the field, this time placing themselves squarely behind Natanial's mercenaries. To the Empress, his people were little more than a human shield for her gifted troops.
Natanial started a count, wondering how long the Dhai here could truly outlast them. No doubt this show of strength was meant to delay them so the others could flee out the far exit, but Otolyn and her troops would be there waiting for them.
All he wanted in this moment, as the next wall of fire came down on the camp, burning away the tents above ground and swirling into the underground tunnels, was to have a little farm in Aaldia like the one where he had found Anavha. The little farm that had almost certainly been destroyed behind them, the way he was destroying this settlement.
I made a stupid mistake, he thought. He hadn't been able to see any other life but this one, his fighting arm directed by the most powerful person around him.
Dhai began pouring up from the ground.
Natanial held his fist high, cautioning his troops to stay still. As if they needed encouragement to do nothing! But if one of them dove into the fray now for easy killing, they would only put themselves in danger of getting pummeled by their own sinajistas.
The smell of burning flesh and hair, green wood, and the tangy bleed of bonsa sap filled the air. Cries, shouts, yes, some of those too, but mostly he heard the crackle of the flames and the hiss and pop of heat-expanded water and sap exploding from the vegetation.
The bodies kept coming up. They had likely found Otolyn's troops at the rear exit. Those who were not trampled would be suffocated by the smoke. Natanial observed the bodies coolly. Singed hair. Raw, blistered skin. Tattered, still flaming clothing. One child ran screaming, naked, across the fallen bodies of three adults before a lashing vine caught it up and crushed it.
The tirajista was doing precise, surgical work. Natanial watched her, curious to see signs of distress or distaste, but she worked with furious concentration, deeply focused. Whirling vines tangled up the defensive units in the trees as well, and they began to drop like mashed insects to the forest floor.
After about a quarter of an hour, the bodies heaving up from the ground grew fewer and fewer, and the waves of fire and skewering vines came further apart.
"That's it!" Monshara called, and raised her fist.
Time to clean up.
Natanial sighed and got off his mount. He began to pull the children's bodies away from the others, making neat, long lines of them. It was grotesque, filthy work, and he began to question, for the first time, what the fuck he was doing here. Working for Saradyn had involved much distasteful work, but that work always felt purposeful. The death was leading somewhere. This was… wasteful.
Otolyn and three of her company arrived, herding a long line of young girls ahead of them. The girls were roped around the neck, six or seven of them. Otolyn slid off her bear and gave them a tug. The girls shrieked and sobbed at the sight of the bodies, all but two of them, who appeared struck dumb by the horror some time before.
Natanial went over to meet her and Monshara. "You know what she looks like?" Natanial asked Monshara.
"I do," Monshara said. "I'm looking for a little girl called Tasia," Monshara said to the girls. They huddled together, shaking and snuffling. Monshara peered into each face in turn. Lingered on one, a narrow-faced girl with big eyes and half her hair burnt off. One ear was slightly charred. "Tell me your name, child."
The child said nothing.
Monshara took off her helmet and knelt beside the girl. "What is your name, child?" she said, more softly.
Nothing.
"Child," Monshara said, "I can't take you back to your mother if I don't know your name."
Another moment of hesitation. Then, "Tasia," the girl whispered. "I'm Tasia Sona."
"All right," Monshara said, and straightened. She released her from the rope and put a hand behind her shoulder, leading her back away from the field of dead and toward the open wink with Madah, who was getting an update from Monshara's second.
"What do we do with the rest?" Otolyn said.
"I bet I can guess," Natanial said. He gazed into each grubby face. He was going to get very drunk tonight.
"I liked it better when we were killing evil fucking Dorinah," Otolyn said. "These are just a bunch of fucking roaches."
"Greater rewards," Natanial said. "The fighting is almost done."
Otolyn spit. "That wasn't a fight."
Natanial couldn't argue.
"Some of them got away," Otolyn said. "None of them were kids, though. I sent a couple of people after them, but no doubt these roaches know the woods better."
"She only wanted the child," Natanial said. "I don't think she'll begrudge us a few extra lives."
"Yeah, well, I'm not counting on that."
He didn't want to stay and see what she did with the children, so he walked back over to Monshara. She had already handed the girl over to Madah. Natanial saw no sign of her.
"We need you to move north," Madah said as he approached. "We've discovered a larger camp there."
"Any more kids we need to kill?" Natanial asked.
"Possibly," Madah said, without hesitation. "We need the ground cleared here, though. You can take prisoners if you like, and interrogate them. Remember we're still looking for Yisaoh Alais Garika."
"Spoils of victory," Natanial said. "There was nothing worth taking here but human flesh. What am I supposed to do to keep my troops' morale up?"
"They are your soldiers, not mine," Madah said. "I'm sure you can think of something."
"It's going to take at least two days to clear this area," Monshara said.
"Yes," Madah said.
The wink closed.
"She's delightful," Natanial said.
"Like her mother," Monshara said. Natanial had no idea who Madah's mother was, but Monshara appeared wistful. Another dead woman? "The Empress will be pleased with this, though." She patted Natanial's arm. "It will be worth it."
She sounded very confident. She had been doing this a long time.
|
(Worldbreaker Saga 3) The Broken Heavens
|
Kameron Hurley
|
[
"fantasy",
"LGBT",
"science fiction fantasy"
] |
[] |
Chapter 27
|
Kirana was in the baths when Madah brought the child down. Kirana heard the shrieking. The slap of flesh. More shrieking, raised voices. She knew who it was, and pulled herself out of the water and began to towel off.
Madah had the girl by one arm, and yanked her forward. "Is this her, Empress?" Madah asked.
Kirana wrapped the towel around her waist and took the girl by the chin. It was always remarkable, how much they all looked alike despite their circumstances, as if there remained some tenuous connection between them, despite the distance of their worlds. Kirana had not borne children, herself. And only Corina had been born of Yisaoh. Tasia and Moira had been born to Yisaoh's long-dead cousin, and Kirana and Yisaoh had fostered them since they were infants.
"Your name is Tasia?" Kirana asked.
The girl nodded.
Kirana released her. That was likely enough, but she wanted to be absolutely certain. No mistakes, this time, no lookalikes. "And who was your mother?"
"Lilia is my mother," Tasia said.
"Lilia?" That did not sit right. Then she remembered the Dhai habit of calling any older woman who shared the household a mother. "I mean, who is the woman who birthed you? Could you tell me about her?"
Tasia shook her head. The girl's eyes filled. "Please, I want to go home!"
"You can go home," Kirana said, crouching before her. "But I need to know your mother's name. The woman who birthed you. You remember?"
"Please let me go home. I have a bird at home. A poppet called Jahin."
She was too frightened. And Kirana could not stomach any more of it. She recognized her well enough. "I have something for you. Turn around for me," Kirana said.
Tasia turned.
"I can do it," Madah said softly.
"No, no," Kirana said. "This was my promise. My family." She held out her hand.
Madah handed her a knife over the girl's head.
Kirana was quick. The blade flashed before the girl understood what had happened. A quick strike to the jugular. Kirana had not wanted to see her face. She held the small body against her as the blood pumped out over her arm and pooled on the floor, slipping across the tiles and making long crimson runnels that drained into the pool, swirling and dissipating in the water. The great living water spiders ballooned up from the bottom of the pool and came to investigate.
Kirana waited until the girl was still, the body drained, then rolled her toward Madah. "Have someone else come for that," she said.
Madah bowed and left her. Kirana took off her towel and waded back into the pool. She floated out onto her back, gazing at the intricate details of the ceiling: happy, peaceful carvings and mosaics of birds and cats, sea creatures and snapping lilies, walking trees and great puffy seeds that navigated the air like something alive. A peaceful people, a peaceful country. Everything she wanted to build. But was it possible to come back from all this darkness? To establish a nation on war and genocide and then wean them off it, promoting peace and cooperation, understanding? She closed her eyes and thought of how she could work with Gian's people. More jistas to help with crops. More mouths to feed, yes, but Gian's people had brought stores with them on the ark. They could trade goods and favors with Aaldia, perhaps. Maybe the killing would be over.
At some point a few of her people came to take the body. She knew she should get out and go to her own Yisaoh, her own Tasia immediately and bring Tasia over. But she lingered. She had always known what saving her people meant. Some days, though, were easier than others.
A gaggle of new bathers arrived, loud and laughing until they saw her. They quieted, but the spell was broken.
Kirana got out of the great pool and dressed. Servants moved out of her way in the changing rooms; one old Dhai woman worked at replenishing the flame fly lanterns. All of the Dhai in the temples were warded; they could not commit physical harm against Kirana or one of her people, but those wards could be removed. Worse, she felt it made her people complacent, knowing the Dhai slaves could not physically harm them. They saw them as ghost people, hardly human, and though Kirana understood that was sometimes easier, she had learned to see every potential adversary clearly, especially those she kept under a fearful thumb. She knew love was a better way to rule than fear, but fear worked much more quickly than love, and she had not had time to woo any of them. It wasn't exactly a good time to start, either, with their food situation still precarious. They might end up eating Dhai bodies for dinner yet.
As she left the baths, a little runner arrived, gaze lowered. "Sai Hofsha has arrived," the boy said.
"She still in the foyer?"
"Just now, yes."
"I'll meet her there. Go."
The runner went ahead. Kirana took her time, and arrived just as Hofsha strode in, followed by two attendants. She had taken on a great number of slaves after the invasion.
"Empress," Hofsha said. She removed her hat and gave an overly dramatic bow. Hofsha was always one for drama and spectacle.
"You have news from Gian?" Kirana asked.
"I do. She has sent a gift."
Kirana eyed the girls.
"No, no," Hofsha laughed. "Nothing so droll. I told her the one thing we have in abundance is people."
"Come," Kirana said, "the Sanctuary."
Hofsha left her girls in the foyer and followed after Kirana into the Sanctuary. It was blessedly empty this time of day, used mainly as a gathering and teaching space.
Kirana closed the door and look around quickly to ensure they had privacy. She sat on one of the great green clothed benches. Hofsha did not sit, but gazed up at the great dome, beaming.
"It was not so long ago I first entered here," Hofsha said. "What a soft people, they were."
"Some other people may think us soft," Kirana said. "I hope not to meet them."
"That is not Gian," Hofsha said quickly. "She turned over storage goods, as you hoped. Enough rice to get us out of this hungry stretch."
"All of us?"
"Remarkably, yes, possibly. That is, I'm not the agricultural steward, but if we absolutely must, we can always stop feeding the slaves."
"I'd prefer to keep the labor."
"Oh, certainly, but–" Hofsha raised her gaze to the ceiling again, made a moue.
"Speak plainly," Kirana spat. She hated Hofsha's posturing.
"Gian has a request."
"Of course she does."
"She doesn't want to coexist. She'd prefer to take Dhai, and leave us with the rest of the country, after."
"And in control of these great engines that can break worlds? No, that would be mad."
Hofsha shrugged. "Well, we get to keep the rice, anyway."
"Is that a deal breaker? Surely she didn't think I'd agree to that."
"It will be difficult to approach her again without a counteroffer."
"Did you insinuate that I could burn up her entire ark at any time I'd like?"
"I did. And she insinuated that it was very well protected."
Kirana huffed. "Why did it have to be Gian? Why not someone with less of a backbone? Aradan? Sovonia? They would have been kissing my feet on our first meeting."
"We may hear from them yet."
"Will she meet me here?" Kirana asked. "If she won't listen to reason, perhaps she will be swayed by seeing it. I want to show her the chambers. And the key passages of the book on how to use these machines are nearly translated."
"I can ask," Hofsha said.
"I don't need you to ask. I need you to persuade."
"Come now," Hofsha said, grinning, "I got a woman to betray her own son. This will be easy."
"Best hope so. Go on."
Hofsha bowed, sweeping her hat forward again, annoyingly, and stepped jauntily from the room.
Kirana went up the long slog of the stairs and knocked on Suari's door. He opened it, still bleary-eyed. She had kept him up the night before going over the translated diagrams from the Worldbreaker book.
"Upstairs," she said. "I need a wink to Yisaoh."
"Oravan is up there."
"I didn't ask for Oravan. I asked for you. Ten minutes."
She left him and went up to her office to prepare. Her secretary was already there, going through piles of missives, many of them sent by sparrows, others hand-delivered by those traveling by wink. The Dhai system of lifts had been largely destroyed by fire – hers and theirs, as she tried to cut them off from fleeing. But with Oma in the sky, travel and communication were very easy. That would not last, Kirana knew, and she already had surveyors out exploring various infrastructure projects that could connect her more quickly from here to the coast, as far north as Caisau and as far east as Janifa, in Dorinah.
Suari took almost half an hour to arrive. He strode up the steps just as she was considering whether to send her secretary down or one of the little Dhai bringing up tea. Oravan and one of her stargazers worked at one side of the table, going over their calculations for the billionth time. Para's rise was imminent, they said; every day they were better able to predict its reappearance, and last she heard, they were days away.
"Did you have other obligations?" Kirana quipped as Suari came through the archway.
"Shall we begin?" Suari said. He raised his hands.
"Do it," Kirana said. She would deal with him again later. If he'd been anything but an omajista, she would have had him strung up above the gates as a warning.
The air shimmered and thickened. Kirana rolled her neck and shoulders, preparing to meet with Yisaoh for the first time in several days. The wink rent the air in front of her, a little too close for her liking, and she narrowed her eyes at Suari.
She waited a beat for the jista on the other side to acknowledge the wink, but there was a long stretch of nothing instead. She gazed long at the dark wall.
Kirana approached the wink and bent to see further into the room. It was empty.
"Piss," Kirana muttered. Someone had left their station.
She called over a guard from the entry to the Assembly Chamber and sent her in to find their contact. The woman went quickly, pressing thumb to forehead and jumping through.
Kirana waited, pointedly ignoring Suari.
The guard reappeared, out of breath. "Something's happened to the consort."
"Fuck!" Kirana went to step in, but the guard held up her hands.
"Empress, caution! Someone has been here. Not one of ours."
"There's no one left alive on that fucking world," Kirana said.
"I don't think… I don't think they're from our world."
"Get back in here. You!" she yelled at one of the Dhai servants. "Go and get me Madah. Tell her I need a scouting party. Oravan!"
"Empress?"
"Relieve Suari. I want you on this wink. Suari, get me a sinajista for this side in case anything comes through."
This time, Suari picked up his pace as he hurried from the room.
Kirana went to her room and buckled on her armor. She held out her right hand, and let the blooming willowthorn weapon unfurl from it. It had been some time since she had needed it. Her heart thrummed. Sweat beaded her lip. Now was not the time to lose the woman she had done all of this to save.
Madah arrived with a force of thirteen, including three jistas. Suari brought a haggard sinajista up, one of the ones Kirana had working below.
"Madah, you have the floor here," Kirana said.
"You aren't… Empress, you aren't going in?" Madah asked.
"Keep the wink open. That's my family," Kirana said, and stepped through.
She unfurled her weapon the moment she was clear of the wink, and waited for the others to make it through. "I need three of you up here," she said. "We go through this room by room."
A tangled ruin of a body lay just outside the wink room; it looked as if it had been savaged by a wild animal, and had been dead at least a day. No, Kirana thought, I am not going to lose them. Not now.
She had told them to go room by room, but she found herself running down the hall, past slippery orange mold that oozed from the seams between the hold's stones. The vines they had used to shore up the place from the tremors and block out the charred air were shriveled and brown.
More bodies lay scattered in the hall, these ones… barely human, though she recognized them. Golden people, two sets of legs, and narrow waists like wasps. Green eyes in delicately featured faces. Like the Empress of Dorinah. Where had these ones come from? Surely not Raisa. Kirana had eradicated all of those who remained. Taking Daorian had been their last stronghold.
Other worlds were not supposed to come to hers, to this dying orb. She had never seen it happen. She came to the door of Yisaoh's rooms and threw herself against it.
"I have it! Empress!" the sinajista called.
"Carefully!" Kirana said.
The door charred from the center outward, blackening as it softened the integrity of wood. Two of her soldiers knocked the char out of the opening and stepped through. Kirana went after them, gaze sweeping the room.
"Mama!" The voice sent a dagger of pain through her heart.
Kirana fell to her knees. Tasia ran into her arms. She hugged her close, shoving her face into the girl's hair and inhaling the scent of her. "Your mother?" Kirana asked, raising her head.
Yisaoh lay in the bed. Kirana took Tasia by the hand and went to the bedside. She heard the ragged wheeze of Yisaoh's breathing.
"Oh, love," Kirana said.
Yisaoh sweated heavily, hands clutched around her middle. She was swaddled in the sheets, wrapped tightly and shivering.
"Tirajista!" Kirana yelled.
The tirajista came over quickly and gently pulled back the sheets. The smell of sweet rot filled the air. Kirana winced. A sour, oozing slash in Yisaoh's belly writhed with maggots.
"I'm… Empress, this isn't my specialty. I'm offensive, not rated for medical–"
Kirana hit her. The tirajista fell back. "Then go get me one who is!"
The tirajista ran.
Kirana bent over Yisaoh. Pushed her hair back. "Hey, love, can you hear me?" But Yisaoh's gaze was blank, so far away.
Tasia squeezed Kirana's hand. "I tried to help," Tasia said. "I locked the door."
"That was good," Kirana said. "What happened here?"
"The creatures came."
"Where's everyone else?"
"There's no one else. I think. We… Mam said to stay here. There was a lot of noise, and then… there wasn't."
"How long have you been here?"
"I don't know. I'm thirsty."
"You, get her some water," Kirana said to one of the soldiers. The woman passed over a bulb of water and Kirana urged Tasia to drink it, then lifted Yisaoh's head and tried to get her to wet her mouth.
Yisaoh coughed, but lapped up a little of it, her body responding even if her mind was addled.
"I'm so sorry," Kirana murmured.
The new tirajista arrived, and Kirana took Tasia into her lap and sat on a nearby chaise.
"Go clear the rest of the building. You, sinajista, and you, stay here with us and hold the door."
The scouting group moved out, and the sinajista and soldier took up a place at the door, far enough away that Kirana felt she could speak to her daughter with some amount of privacy.
Yisaoh gasped. The air grew heavy. The tirajista had a little bag of salves and potions with her, which rested near her feet.
"Mama, is she hurting?" Tasia whispered.
"She'll be fine, she's getting help. You did very well caring for her." Kirana smoothed back her hair. "I need to know more about these people who came here, though."
"They were scary," Tasia said. "I just ran."
"All right," Kirana said.
Yisaoh moaned. The tirajista had her drink something from a small green flask. Yisaoh's hand fluttered up, gripped it.
Kirana bent forward, waiting.
"Kirana?" Yisaoh whispered.
"I'm here." Kirana got up and stood next to the tirajista. The wound on Yisaoh's belly was closed, but the seam was still red. Hundreds of dead maggots littered the bedsheets.
The tirajista wiped the sweat from Yisaoh's forehead. Her black gaze was clearer now, alert.
Yisaoh reached for her. "Tasia?"
"I'm here, Mam," Tasia said. Yisaoh pressed her cheek.
"Good girl, my good girl," Yisaoh said.
"Suari was supposed to check on you daily," Kirana said. "Has he not?"
Yisaoh shook her head. "It's been three days. I thought… I don't know what I thought."
"I'll deal with him. Who came here?"
The tirajista wiped a greasy salve onto the red seam of the wound and began to pack up her things.
"Thank you," Kirana said.
The woman bent her head. "Anyone else?"
"Stay," Kirana said. "I have scouts looking for survivors."
The tirajista bowed her head and went to join the soldier and the sinajista at the doorway.
"It was sudden," Yisaoh said. She touched her belly, rubbed the greasy salve between her fingers.
"Why would any of them come to this world?"
"You know why," Yisaoh said.
"I'm sorry," Kirana said. "I can take Tasia this time, though."
Yisaoh's eyes filled. "Not me? Not me?" The tears fell freely. She gave a great heaving sob.
"Fuck," Kirana said. "Fuck, we're… soon. I–"
Yisaoh shook her head violently. "Take her," she said. "Take Tasia."
"No, Mam, I won't leave you!"
"Yisaoh, I'm… very close. We are–"
"Just go," Yisaoh said.
"I'm leaving this whole squad with you," Kirana said. "And I'll send more. You'll be protected. Gian has agreed to work together. We have more resources. I will–"
"Oh, Kirana." Yisaoh gestured for her to come closer. Kirana bent next to her. Yisaoh still wept, the tears would not stop. Kirana's heart nearly burst. "You know who pushed that weapon into my gut, Kirana, love? You know who Tasia barred the door against, though I told her to close her eyes, to look away?"
"Was it Gian? I will fucking murder her. I will murder her and all of her people. I will burn that ark–"
"No, no," Yisaoh said, and she pressed her lips to Kirana's ear. "It was you, love. You came here to murder us."
|
(Worldbreaker Saga 3) The Broken Heavens
|
Kameron Hurley
|
[
"fantasy",
"LGBT",
"science fiction fantasy"
] |
[] |
Chapter 28
|
Roh still lay tangled with Kadaan, warm and muzzy-headed under a great bearskin, when he heard the shouting outside. He squeezed his eyes shut, willing the voice away, though it was familiar. He just wanted to sleep. He wanted to feel safe, just for another moment.
Anavha yanked open the thin membrane of the tent, and fell back when he saw that Roh wasn't alone. His eyes widened at the sight of Kadaan wiping sleep from his eyes.
"Zezili is here!" Anavha cried.
Kadaan pulled on his under clothes and reached for a weapon. Roh yanked on his tunic.
"Wait," Roh said to Kadaan, waving at the weapon. "What is it, Anavha?"
"Zezili," Anavha said. "My wife."
"Your wife? Here? Isn't that… good?"
"No, oh no, no." Anavha pressed his hand to his mouth. "Oh no! This is very bad, Roh. This is so bad. Something has happened to her, she looks… Maybe it isn't her? Could it be a Tai Mora? Maybe, maybe so. But she knew me!"
Kadaan handed Roh his tunic and said in Saiduan, "Is this a domestic matter?"
"I just need to calm him down," Roh said. "I'm sure it's fine."
Kadaan shrugged and kissed him. Roh held the kiss a moment longer than Kadaan expected. They leaned in together, still hungry, still warm.
"Please!" Anavha said.
Roh sighed. "All right."
He had expected that meeting Kadaan again after all this time, after all that had happened to him, would be awkward and terrible. Roh was no longer the dancer Kadaan had known. He had been a slave for a long time now. But they didn't speak about any of that. They drank aatai and Kadaan told him about how he had escaped Anjoliaa. Roh talked about how he had convinced Anavha into getting them out of Oma's Temple, and Kadaan found the story incredible.
They didn't speak much more that night. The speaking, the reliving of the horror, wasn't what either of them wanted. No talk of the past. No talk of the future.
In the wan light of day, Roh saw that Kadaan looked much older than he remembered. The bruises beneath his eyes were deep, and the lines around his mouth seemed to always draw his lips into a frown. But he was warm, and familiar, and for a little longer, Roh wanted to pretend nothing had happened to either of them. He pulled on his trousers, wincing at the sight of his mangled knees, and crawled out of the shelter.
The wind brought with it the smell of burning. Wisps of smoke curled through the air.
"Is that us?" he asked Anavha, but Anavha was already babbling again about his wife.
Saradyn still lay wrapped in a fireweed blanket, snoring near a banked fire. Roh could not see any other source of burning but the fires nearby, all of which were banked and nearly smokeless.
"Anavha, what's burning?" Roh asked again.
Anavha hugged himself; he was trembling. "I don't know about that. It's just, Zezili–"
A woman strode toward them, one with a tawny Dhai complexion but the flat features of a Dorinah. Roh saw something odd about her immediately. She moved too fast. Her skin was too clear. Something in her black eyes gave him pause. Roh limped forward and placed himself in front of Anavha. Anavha made some kind of strangled shriek and froze in place.
"Who are you?" Roh asked in Dorinah. "Anavha wants to be left alone."
"He's my husband," the woman, Zezili, said. Her black hair was long and shiny, twisted back from her face in a single loop.
"You don't own him," Roh said. "This is Dhai."
Behind him, Saradyn sat up, stretched, and yawned. Zezili's gaze moved to him, and her eyes widened. "You've got to be fucking kidding me."
Saradyn caught sight of her and laughed.
Zezili roared at him and bolted past Roh, knocking Roh and Anavha out of the way. She tackled Saradyn and punched him square in the face. His nose burst, spewing blood.
Roh, dumbfounded, watched them roll around in the turf.
Kadaan came out just as Saradyn bit the woman's cheek, spraying more blood.
"Do we want to break this up?" Kadaan asked.
"I don't know," Roh said. He glanced at Anavha. "What–"
"He cut off her hand," Anavha said. "And kidnapped me, I suppose. Well, it was Natanial, but it was for Saradyn."
Roh thought that interesting, as Zezili seemed to have both hands. Tira was risen, though, and Sina, and Oma. He supposed all things were possible. Why being kidnapped by Saradyn didn't seem to bother Anavha at all was puzzling, though.
A blazing ring of fire surrounded the two struggling adversaries, so hot it nearly singed Roh's eyebrows. He stumbled back, twisting his ankle on a divot in the ground, and fell. Kadaan reached for him.
Maralah came up to them, one hand out, face intent, little tendrils of fire dancing along her fingers. "That's enough! No violence in the camp! Enough! Get up!"
Two twining whips of fire lashed at Zezili and Saradyn, finally drawing them apart. Zezili sat back, snarling, her hair singed. Half of Saradyn's beard was a melted mess; the air filled with the smell of burnt hair. He was shouting things at her in Tordinian as he got up. Still raging, he smacked his hand against a tree, for all the good it did him. Blood poured freely from his nose, spilling down his front.
"Saradyn," Roh said. "Let it be." Kadaan helped him to his feet. A burning thread of pain shot through Roh's ankle. Just his luck.
"Attacked me!" Saradyn bellowed, in Dorinah.
"Sounds like she had good cause," Kadaan said.
Maralah stalked up to them. "What the fuck is going on here?" she asked in Dhai, though the word "fuck" was in Saiduan.
"Anavha?" Roh suggested, because he honestly had no idea.
"I'm his wife!" Zezili said, rubbing at her bleeding cheek. "I have a right to speak to my husband. But him!" she pointed at Saradyn. "This man is a fucking war criminal. A fucking warmonger. You cast him out or I'll fucking kill him."
"Is she real?" Anavha breathed. "Saradyn, you can see, can't you? Is she real? Is she some other Zezili? An imposter?"
Saradyn rubbed at his face again. Glanced at Roh. Roh tried again, speaking more slowly, "Is this woman from here? Or is she a shadow?"
"Ah," Saradyn said. He snorted. "Zezili. The same. Ours. Yes, same dumb cattle."
"Fuck you, Saradyn, you mewling shitfucking–"
"You'll shut your fucking face," Maralah said, and a wavering shield of shimmering heat surrounded her, so hot even Roh winced. "You get along or you leave the camp. We go by Dhai rules here. Woodland Dhai rules say no one owns anyone and nobody beats up anybody, no matter what you did outside this camp. I don't like it either, but that's how it is."
"Those are weak fucking rules," Zezili said. "You fucking kill me, then!"
"I might," Maralah said. "Don't test me."
"No one said anything to me about Dhai rules," Zezili said.
Maralah snorted. "Probably because 'don't murder the people who are providing you aid' should have been immediately obvious."
"Could you just agree to leave Anavha alone?" Roh asked. "He's clearly frightened of you."
Zezili frowned. "What? No, he's my husband. Anavha, you're not frightened, are you?"
Anavha, still shaking, did not look at her.
"Stay away from him," Maralah said. "And you–" she pointed at Saradyn, "–you stay away from her."
Three other Dhai approached her, elders from the Woodland camp. Maralah began explaining her use of her gift, and the tussle between Zezili and Saradyn. Roh wondered if they would be exiled. Saradyn had provided a lot of aid to him, and his ability to find spies among them was valuable. Perhaps if he could speak to them…
Roh tried to move away from Kadaan, but putting pressure on his ankle sent a fresh wave of pain. He sucked in a breath.
"I'll take you to the infirmary," Kadaan said.
"It's fine–"
"Tira is risen," Kadaan said. "They can repair the injury in a few minutes and relieve the pain. There's no need to suffer."
Roh heard the other part of that, too, and he admitted it made his heart a little lighter. "I suppose there are some things that can be mended," Roh said.
"Yes." Kadaan squeezed his hand. "We have time."
Yet, as Roh walked to the doctor's tent with Kadaan, he wondered how true that was. Did they have time? If they got onto that ship together and sailed south, if they left all of this to the Tai Mora and the various warring factions from other worlds, how safe would they truly be? For how long?
"This is Sola," Kadaan said, introducing Roh to a lean young Saiduan woman in the medical tent who wore a leather apron. She had long, bony fingers and a chin that barely emerged from her jaw, giving her the appearance of a turtle.
"Twisted ankle," Roh said, apologetic, because it seemed so small a thing to bother her with.
"Have a seat here, I'm just finishing with a patient."
Kadaan helped him sit on one of the cots. "I'm going to go and eat. I'll bring you something to break your fast," Kadaan said.
Roh sat at the edge of the cot, legs dangling. Sola stood a few paces distant with a young woman, administering what appeared to be a very bitter tea. When Sola moved away, Roh saw the grimace on the girl's face. She, too, sat at the edge of her cot, legs dangling, one foot twisted under slightly. She leaned to one side, and worked her weak left hand in her lap; it had clearly just been regrown.
She raised her head. Met his gaze.
There was a long moment.
Roh stared at her, dumbstruck. Her face was full of shiny scars, and her hair was much longer, her eyes somehow blacker, and her frown had clearly deepened, aging her face before its time. Her skin was sallow, sickly, and she was far too thin.
He wasn't sure what to say. He wasn't entirely sure it was her.
Something tugged at the corners of her mouth. A smile? Almost.
"We really have to stop meeting like this," Lilia said.
Roh burst into tears.
|
(Worldbreaker Saga 3) The Broken Heavens
|
Kameron Hurley
|
[
"fantasy",
"LGBT",
"science fiction fantasy"
] |
[] |
Chapter 29
|
Kirana turned over the hourglass on her desk and watched the black granules slip through it for the fourth time in a quarter hour. Her daughters played in the waiting area outside her study. She did not usually want them up here, but after what had happened back on her world, she wanted them close. Wanted to hear the sound of their laughter.
She had left Yisaoh with a force of over a hundred to look after her, including several of her most trusted jistas. It was not a good time to be short of jistas, but if Yisaoh died… what was all of this for?
The sand ran its course.
She turned over the hourglass again.
Kirana had fought herself before, on this world. But that Kirana had been a sickly pacifist. That Kirana would never have considered leaping across worlds to hurt that which Kirana most valued. But the question that Kirana kept coming back to was… why? Why murder Yisaoh and Tasia? So she could bring across her own children to Raisa? But that would also mean that Kirana had to kill her, if she meant to come over. It made her head hurt.
Monshara had burned out the Dhai camp where they found Tasia, but if Yisaoh, this world's Yisaoh, had been there, she had survived the attack, because her own wife could not come through. Yisaoh remained stuck, and time was, as ever, shorter and shorter. Never enough time.
And Suari was missing. She had relished the thought of torturing him slowly, over many days, but when she sent soldiers to look for him, he was missing, his meager belongings gone. Was he conspiring with her other self? For what purpose? Maybe the other version of her was nicer to her omajistas.
A knock at the door. "Kai? Commissar Gian has arrived."
"Send her up."
"Would you like the children to stay?"
"No, have the nanny take them to the library below."
The servant pressed thumb to forehead, and conferred with the girls and their nanny outside. That was a good little Dhai, that one. Kirana wondered if she were too good. She rubbed her face. Lies, backstabbing, betrayal. She was always waiting for one of them to ruin her, because so many clearly wanted to. Why now, though, when they were successful? She had saved their fucking lives, all her people, and the thanks she got was Suari fleeing like a fucking jilted lover.
She went back into her bedroom and changed into a clean tunic. Washed her face with tepid water from a little basin. When she arrived back into the assembly chamber, one of the Dhai had put out tea and wine. Her remaining stargazers, led by Masis, were laying out their work on the table. One of her line commanders, Yivsa, was in attendance while Madah managed forces on the plateau.
Gian arrived, escorted by another of Kirana's omajistas. Gian brought with her the familiar faces from the ark, her lovers or seconds or cousins; Kirana had never asked. Kirana had permitted her to bring three of her own jistas, as well, making her party a rather large assemblage of seven.
The chamber was full for the first time since Kirana had taken it. Gian looked better after some doctoring and food. Her mouth was a thin line.
"Kirana," Gian said.
"Gian," Kirana said. "Will you sit? I apologize we don't have chairs for everyone, and I know it was a long series of steps."
Kirana sat first, gesturing for Gian to sit opposite. Gian hesitated a moment, then was seated. Her jistas kept at her back. One of the Dhai servants poured them all tea, but no one touched it.
"Thank you for attending," Kirana said. "I wanted us to better understand what we need to do together. Could you go through it step by step for us, Masis? For the benefit of our allies here?"
Masis laid out the translated pages of the Worldbreaker guide, each a detailed map of the underground chambers that she had discovered beneath each of the temples, as well as a diagram of the great lumbering beast they had dredged up, the fifth temple.
"The temples are engines," Masis said, "built for harnessing and focusing the power of the satellites. That's why all four satellites must be in the sky in order for them to work. The front matter is mostly myth and legend. It was written at least fifty or sixty years after the last rising of Oma."
"After they failed," Gian said.
"Yes." Masis pointed out the symbols next to each chamber diagram. "Four jistas, one to call each satellite, stand around a fifth figure, at the center, that must channel their power through each of the four temples to the fifth temple. We have been calling these people at the center 'conduits'. They can be any type of jista. But inside the fifth temple, the setup is different."
He tapped a different diagram, an intricately detailed room with multiple rings and intersecting lines labeled along the floors and walls. Here there were pedestals for seven figures. Four surrounding a fifth, around a massive orb at the center where the fifth would stand. The orb was labeled "Worldbreaker." "Guide" was written at the entrance to the chamber. Another placement, just in front of the central orb, was labeled "Key."
"So, the power is concentrated at this fifth engine," Kirana said. "Let's call them what they are."
"Correct," Masis said. "As we intuited, it's the person here, at the orb, that can use that combined power to… do anything, really."
"Define anything," Gian said.
Masis rubbed his chin. "Once they are fully powered, the Worldbreaker, or Worldshaper, depending on your translation of it, must manipulate the mechanism according to a set of rules that determine the outcomes."
"Slow down there," Kirana said. "Worldshaper? Why haven't I heard that translation before? Every text prior has referenced a Worldbreaker."
"This book is older," Masis said, "and the dialect is slightly different. I would not be comfortable saying it was one or the other."
Kirana nodded. "All right. What else?"
Masis continued, "The simplest way to use this device is to close the ways between this world, Raisa, and all of the others. Those instructions are in the book itself, here." He pointed to the page opposite the diagram of the fifth temple. "But it also refers to a more complicated set of instructions appearing in the appendix."
"What do those do?" Gian asked.
Masis gave a small shrug. "I'm afraid we don't know."
Even Kirana found that surprising. This, Suari had kept from her. "You don't know?"
"No, Kai… I mean, Empress. The book refers to an appendix. But I'm afraid the book has no appendix. It was torn out long before we received it."
Had Luna torn it out? Kirana thought, somewhere between the time ze washed up on the shores of Dorinah and when Kirana locked hir in the gaol? That tricky little ataisa.
"We'll have time to explore other ways to use its power," Kirana said. "Para should remain in the sky for a time, even after we use this combined power to close the ways. Is that still correct, based on your translations?"
"Yes," Masis said, "and for a much longer period than we suspected. While the engines themselves must be powered within the first two days of Para's rise, Para itself should remain risen with the other satellites for a full year, perhaps a little more."
"Good," Kirana said. "Let's concentrate on who we need to power this thing. What's this about a key and a guide? The Saiduan were looking for a worldbreaker. That can just be an omajista?"
"The engines themselves are sentient," Masis said. "They choose a key and a guide, we believe, but the Worldbreaker is simply one who harnesses that power. The only requirement seems to be that the Worldbreaker understand the instructions on how to use the mechanism and have some sensitivity to one of the satellites."
Kirana drummed her fingers on the table. "I have coteries of jistas now at each engine," she said, "waiting on my word to take their places the moment Para rises. No sleep until that fucking satellite goes down or we seal ourselves off from these invaders. But whom do I assign as a conduit? Does it matter? Any type of jista? Gian will need to know this, so we may decide how best to deploy our jistas."
"It doesn't matter in the text," Masis said, "but I'd put your most powerful in the role of conduit at each of the four other temples. They will need to be able to channel a great deal of power without burning out."
"You all seem to be skipping the most important thing," Gian said. "If these engines won't respond to Kirana, and if we still have not found a Guide or a Key, we could have three thousand jistas in each temple and not see a result."
"Well…" Masis said, nervously moving the diagrams around on the table. "There is this bit of translation that Talahina and I worked on. It's… a little poetic and strange, but–"
"Come, Masis," Kirana said.
He cleared his throat. "The book says the Key and the Guide will be drawn to the fifth temple. Through some supernatural or divine means? I don't know. Perhaps a pheromone the temple itself gives off? If this is true, well… perhaps the Guide and the Key will… enter the fifth temple when Para rises. We have only to be there to follow them."
"That's trusting far too much in fate," Kirana said. "If you had not intuited, Masis, I am not a woman content to rely on fate."
"I understand," Masis said. "Talahina, will you present your idea?"
Talahina, the young stargazer who hardly ever spoke, squeezed her way past the jistas and soldiers to take a place at the table. She fluttered her hands nervously, and stared mostly at the table. "Yes, Empress," Talahina said. "We… That is, I have considered another way into the fifth temple."
"And?" Kirana said. She could not keep the irritation from her voice. Too much waiting. Too much disseminating.
"We have treated the temples as if they are inorganic," Talahina said. "I propose that we consider them as beasts, and approach them that way."
"They are beasts with very tough skins," Kirana said.
"Indeed," Talahina said. "But beasts… must breathe. Even underwater, the fifth temple had access to oxygen, certainly."
"Do we know that they breathe air?" Gian said.
"It's very likely," Talahina said, "though we suspect they intake it through either their skin, or the complex root systems at the bottom of each temple. Perhaps both."
"You want us to suffocate it?" Kirana said. "But what if we kill it?"
"I… We could consider starving it… slowly. Over time. They are sentient beasts. A few minutes here, a few minutes there, each time demanding entrance. I was… I apologize, Empress, it was just a thought."
"An interesting one to come from a scholar," Kirana said. "I would have expected that suggestion from Madah." She turned over that idea for a few moments, then, "I approve of the attempt. We can do this without Gian's jistas, surely?"
Talahina nodded, and stepped away from the table, back into the anonymity of the crowd.
"Do you have more questions, Gian?" Kirana asked.
"Not at this time. Could we speak privately?"
"Of course." Kirana dismissed the scholars and jista.
Masis collected his diagrams and hurried away with Himsa, Orhin and Talahina, their soft robes brushing against the floor.
Gian's retinue stood and waited for her in the doorway, far enough to give them some privacy, but not so far that they could not keep an eye on her.
"How can I trust you with all this power?" Gian asked.
Kirana prickled. This alliance was already annoying her. She took a breath, remembering the stink of Yisaoh's wound.
"How could I trust you with it?" Kirana asked. "You understand that as part of this alliance, I am happy for your people to inhabit any region you wish. Any but this one."
"What's to stop you from using this power to murder all of us, once you figure out other ways to direct its power?"
"There isn't anything stopping us," she said. "That's why it's in your interest to have your jistas work together with mine in the belly of these engines. What I told you back at your ark is true. I'm weary of war, Gian. You don't want it either."
"How can I trust that?"
"You can't, there's no guarantee."
"There is a way."
Kirana felt heat move up her face. "If you think–"
"I want a warded promise," Gian said.
Kirana could not hide her own shock at the suggestion. She fairly reared back in her chair.
Gian leaned forward. "If you are so eager for peace," she said, "a warded alliance should be a small thing to ask."
"Wards can be removed."
"Not without the other party knowing," she said. "You and I will always know if the other has gone back on their word, or is preparing to."
"A ward still doesn't keep one of us from ordering the other killed," Kirana said.
"There is a far better type of ward," Gian said. "One you will greatly appreciate. Created by a tirajista and a sinajista. It ties our lives together. One to the other. If you die, I die, and vice versa. It ensures that neither party seeks to assassinate the other."
"What if your heart gives out? Or you drown? I won't be tethered to your bad fortune. No."
Gian stood abruptly. "Then we are done."
"What will you do without our alliance?"
"We will make a place for ourselves," she said. "We need you far less than you imagine."
"What do you have left?" Kirana said. "A thousand people? Many died in that fall."
"Which is why I won't risk more of them for a fool plan for which I have no guarantees."
Kirana shifted her hands into her lap and squeezed her fists. She knew what Yisaoh would say to this. Peace required sacrifices.
"I agree, then," Kirana said. "But I want the ward interrogated and understood and created in concert with my people."
Gian sat back down. "That is agreeable."
"How many can you send with us, to protect and to power each of these temples?"
"I will speak to my people. Your Sai Hofsha is still about. I can give her the message when we have decided. As you understand, the way we make decisions is communal, not tyrannical. It can take some time."
"You have until Para rises," Kirana said. "I'm sorry, I don't rule the heavens." Not yet, she thought, but there was a budding hope now, more than there had been in many months.
They discussed the temples and their engines for some time longer, and more urgent but boring issues, like where to house Gian's people; she preferred to keep them in the ark, which meant repairs, and constructing aqueducts. The infrastructure question was always top of her mind, right after food. Sanitation was becoming an issue.
Kirana felt the knot in her gut ease after several hours, when Gian finally drank from her cold teacup and asked for wine.
This is going to work, Kirana thought. The realization was a warm balm that softened her tight, terrified gut.
|
(Worldbreaker Saga 3) The Broken Heavens
|
Kameron Hurley
|
[
"fantasy",
"LGBT",
"science fiction fantasy"
] |
[] |
Chapter 30
|
Lilia had never seen Roh cry.
"Roh?" she said softly. "Rohinmey? It is you, isn't it?"
He nodded, covering his face.
Lilia got up and sat next to him. "I'm so sorry, I–"
"Li." Light. "Can I have a hug?" he said.
She wrapped her arms around him. He trembled against her, sobbing. Lilia pressed her face against his neck. She wanted to feel something, but was mostly shocked. He sobbed for a long time, so long she realized it was not at all about her, but something else, something deeper, something very broken.
"Hush," Lilia said. "Hush now. We're all right."
"We're not," he said. "We're not, that's the problem."
She pulled away and regarded him. His hair was longer, braided back against his head, the tails tucked under and out of the way. His skin was cracked and peeling, the lips chapped, and his knuckles were peppered in scars. His eyes, too, were very different. He seemed so much older. Maybe she did too.
"What are you doing here?" she asked.
He touched her wrist. "I figured you would go to the Woodland," he said. "Some Woodland Dhai helped us track various camps of outsiders. This was where they pointed us."
"Ours was south of here," Lilia said. "You would have missed me. Well, it's a long story."
"They know about that camp here," he said. "I'd have found you. What I don't understand is why the Tai Mora didn't."
"The Woodland Dhai don't talk to Tai Mora," Lilia said. "They seem to be better at spotting them than many of us. The Tai Mora are especially bad in their understanding of the Woodland. I think it makes them stand out."
"How did you… Why are you here, then?"
"It's a very long story."
"Mine too."
They sat in awkward silence. Lilia had no idea how to even begin.
Sola interrupted them. "How do you know each other?" she said.
"It was a very long time ago," Lilia said. "I'm sorry, please help him."
"It's all right, I'm glad you're better too. You were just a bit dehydrated. The bone tree wounds healed cleanly."
Sola bent to tend to Roh's ankle, weaving tendrils of Tira's breath to mend him.
Lilia got up and went back to her cot. Her mind raced. What next? Where was Zezili? What to do with Roh? He was a parajista, he could help her. She just needed to convince these people, whoever was in charge…
Sola finished with Roh. He tested his ankle. Stood, put his weight on it. Lilia noticed his knees, then, how he had not fully bent them when he sat, and how he stepped gingerly now, more a hobble than a walk. What had the world done to all of them?
"Thank you," Roh said. He lifted his head. "Lilia, I want you to meet someone. Kadaan. My good friend."
Kadaan was a Saiduan name. Lilia had seen a few of them here, and met Maralah, the woman who insisted she wasn't in charge but who all of the Saiduan and many of the Dhai listened to, nonetheless. Lilia had immediately noted how much they looked up to her.
"Roh, there's something very important I need to do," Lilia said. It came out in a rush. "You remember when Taigan came to the temple? He thought I was gifted, and… that's a very long story. But listen, I think there's a way to… Oh, it's very complicated. Listen, I was in Tira's Temple. The temple… keeper, something, a creature, told me that–"
"What?" Roh said. He stiffened.
"Tira's Temple. There was this device… and… This fifth temple that the Tai Mora dredged up? It's not far from here, and I think, I really think Roh, that we could have a chance to take hold of it ourselves. It will take a great deal of coordination, and we don't have much time, but we have an element of surprise. She will never think–"
"Li, listen to what you're saying."
"No, you listen!" she nearly shouted. Stopped. Took a deep breath. "Roh, I'm not sure you understand, but there's something very important that I've been working toward. You are a parajista. You can help. We can use the temples to destroy the Tai Mora once and –"
"Stop," Roh said. "We need to back up a little. And take some time to talk. Really talk about this. You're talking about breaking the world. About powering the temples to push the Tai Mora back? Not just stop other worlds from coming here?"
"How did you–"
"Come," he said, holding out his hand. "Meet Kadaan, and we'll talk more."
She took his hand, but her heart was already betraying her, thumping loudly in her chest. She felt a tugging sensation to the west: Zezili. What was Zezili doing now?
Natanial and his people spent a day mucking through bodies, looking for a tall woman with a broken nose called Yisaoh. After a time, all the bodies looked the same to Natanial. He found himself drinking a little more wine at night, and another few slugs of it during the day.
"She isn't here," Otolyn said when he came over to her tent the evening of the second day. He collapsed next to her. Huffed out a long sigh.
"You stink," she said.
"So do you."
"Why don't we just fuck off?" Otolyn said.
"Can't," he said. "It's a long story. You're not bound, though. I know this isn't what you hoped for."
"Life isn't want I hoped for," Otolyn said. She brushed back an oily hank of hair from his face. "Poor bored thing, aren't you?"
"Just disappointed."
"Want to have sex?"
"Not really."
"Wine?"
"Yes."
She handed him her jug. He drank deeply. On the other side of the camp, near where Monshara's larger tent was staked, a wink shimmered into existence.
"Mother's calling," Otolyn said.
"Let her come to me," Natanial said. He drank more of the wine and set the mug between him and Otolyn. "What you think the sky will look like, when this is over?"
"About what it looks like now," she said, "just one more star."
"You're so very Tordinian."
"You're so very properly Aaldian. You don't even realize it."
"Don't I?"
"You were in love with that kid, weren't you? That omajista you found."
"Could we not?"
"Just saying, that's bad. Bring some dumb kid into this."
"Thank you. Very insightful. I see the error of my ways."
"Can't change them though, huh?"
"No."
"Natanial!" Monshara's voice. She waved at him from her tent.
"What if I pretend not to see her?" Natanial asked.
"Too late," Otolyn said.
Natanial struggled to his feet and wended his way through the camp to Monshara's side.
"We have another offensive," Monshara said. "I put a ranger on the tail of the survivors from this one, to see where they went."
"And?"
"Found another camp north of this one. They're using hazing wards of some kind. Not even a hundred people there, but some are Saiduan. That's concerning. Could have jistas. Sanisi. They aren't fun."
"No, they are not," Natanial said. "When do we go?"
"Dawn. Come in and let's sketch out the plan here with my line commanders."
Natanial wanted to groan, but it came out a grunt. He went into the stuffy tent and stood with Monshara and her line commanders as they plotted out the terrain of the camp. It lay perched on a great cliff overlooking the sea, and had an easy escape route at the center: a winding tunnel that cut through the cliff and led down to the sea.
"We circle them with winks, here, here, and these, here," Monshara said, marking out the areas with little brass circles. "Pour through here, overwhelm them. Sinajistas below, to catch any of the ones trying to escape through that sea cave. Be like sending dogs after rats. Easy enough."
"You said sanisi," Natanial said. "What about them?"
"The jistas will worry about them," Monshara said. "We aren't there for the sanisi. We're there for Yisaoh."
When she dismissed them all an hour later, Natanial went back to his tent, alone, and slept fitfully. Otolyn woke him, already grinning, the blistering ball of Tira's green glow just over her shoulder.
"Let's have some more fun," Otolyn said.
Natanial splashed his face with water and helped his fighters break camp, then rode up to join Monshara and the other line commanders to the wink where Madah, one of Kirana's generals, waited to give their final instructions.
"We're ready for you," Madah said, from the other side of the wink. She glanced behind her, to a rolling bank of greenery.
Natanial considered telling her his people weren't ready for her, but supposed his choices were limited at this point. What if he told her no? He would be burned alive like that unfortunate man under the temple dome.
"I'm thinking this isn't worth the money," Otolyn said, riding up behind him, voice loud enough for Madah to hear. With her she carried saddlebags stuffed with goods rooted out from the charred remains of the warren below. Food had been the most valuable loot in the aftermath of the slaughter.
Madah glanced back at them, glared at Otolyn.
"Better food over there?" Otolyn called.
"Less talking, more moving!" Madah said. "I've got winks opening on the next field. Clear your area there immediately."
Natanial called his forces together. "Circular assembly! Backs to the bonsa line!"
The great heaps of bodies they had collected and sorted through from the Dhai camp lay smoldering. The smell had been oddly appetizing, which he found grotesque, but hunger and lack of proper protein affected all of them. He had lost six soldiers in the two days they had spent at the camp, each one a blow to his esteem as a leader. In truth, he wanted to join them. Perhaps they were the smartest of all of them.
Natanial kicked awake a few of his hungover soldiers, and found two more were missing.
"Smarter than the rest of us," Natanial muttered as Otolyn paced him up on her bear.
"Maybe if we wait long enough it'll be over by the time we get there," Otolyn said.
Natanial got back onto his mount. "Go run your line."
"Yeah, yeah," she said, and turned her bear around to go inspect her portion of the troops. Such as they were.
"We ready?" Monshara called from the front, fist raised.
Natanial nodded to Otolyn. She raised their flag.
Three winks opened ahead of them.
|
(Worldbreaker Saga 3) The Broken Heavens
|
Kameron Hurley
|
[
"fantasy",
"LGBT",
"science fiction fantasy"
] |
[] |
Chapter 31
|
Lilia had not been prepared for Roh's story of Saiduan, of the murder of Ora Dasai and the scholars, of his flight from the Tai Mora with his friend Luna and the Worldbreaker book, of his enslavement.
She found her stomach knotting as she sat over a bowl of cooling porridge with Roh and Kadaan at the center of camp. Kadaan was a tall Saiduan man ten years their senior who looked at Roh as if he were a precious star fallen from the sky.
"I can't… I'm so sorry, Roh," Lilia said.
"It's in the past," Roh said, but when he gazed past her she could not help but wonder who or what he saw there.
She leaned forward. "I'd like to talk about Caisau, though. It spoke to you, the way Tira's Temple spoke to me?"
He nodded. "It said I'm the… Guide. That I could get into the temples, that I could bring the Key and the Worldbreaker, and… I don't know, Li. I worked so hard to get here, thinking maybe we could do what the temples want, but… there's a real chance for us to have a life outside of Dhai. We could travel with the Saiduan, we could–"
"It's all right, puppy," Kadaan said, and took Roh's hand.
Lilia found Kadaan's nickname for Roh very annoying. "It matches what Tira's Temple told me," she said. "Don't you see? It's all coming together! You and I, together again. And so close to the fifth temple. These people with you? You said one is an omajista? And you're a parajista. All we need is a tirajista and a sinajista. I could operate the mechanism, I'm sure of it. I could figure it out. You'd be the Guide, we'd only need a Key, only–"
"That is still many missing pieces," Kadaan said. "It's a very desperate idea."
"These are desperate times!" Lilia said.
"The Saiduan are not part of this," Kadaan said.
"You already are part of it," Lilia said. "You don't get to decide. All you have to decide now is what you're going to do."
"I'm going to create a home," Kadaan said.
"Well, you're a coward," Lilia said.
Kadaan raised his brows. A dark expression moved over his face, one that chilled Lilia to the bone. She had forgotten he was a sanisi.
He rose from the bench and said, "I'm going to help Maralah."
"I'm sorry," Roh said. "We'll speak later?"
Kadaan nodded.
"You didn't have to be rude, Li." Roh poked at his porridge.
"Come on, Roh! We are two of the three; I know we are! And surely… I don't know, we could do something with all these other allies we have here. What about Maralah? What kind of a jista is she?"
"Sinajista," he said.
"Look, then! We have a lot of what we need." Lilia dumped out her porridge on the table.
"What are you–"
Lilia drew a rough circle and mapped out the chamber in Tira's Temple from memory. "A parajista here. Kadaan. A sinajista. Maralah. Your omajista friend here. We'd just need a tirajista. Sola could do that, or Salifa! Oh, Salifa. I wonder… I bet I could get her to join us. She wanted to come, but Meyna and Yisaoh, and the Kai… The Kai is a terror. We could do this, Roh."
Roh frowned at her gooey attempt at a plan. "You don't have enough," he said. "You need a plan to get into one of the temples. Step into my circle…"
"What was that?"
"It's what the creature told me… step into my circle. There are two ways to get to the fifth temple, I think. Go directly there, and just… walk in, I think, or get back to the Assembly Chamber at the top of Oma's Temple, and step through there."
"It would be difficult to get a gate opened at the fifth temple," Lilia said. "No one's been inside it."
"Oma's Temple? Li, I just nearly died trying to get out of Oma's Temple."
"I don't think we're all here because of luck, or coincidence. I think Oma has drawn us here. I think we have everyone we need."
"Oma is a brute."
"It is. But if it's asking us to come together here, maybe we're here to–"
"Get revenge?" he said.
"No, I–"
"Because this whole time, what you sound like is someone who is really mad because she doesn't have any other life after the Tai Mora are dead."
"You don't need to be mean."
She saw Zezili approach from behind Roh. Her face was drawn. She scratched at something on her upper belly, just beneath her breasts.
"What is it?" Lilia asked.
Roh turned. "Oh no," he said. "You know Zezili?"
"She… It's a long story."
"Fuck," Zezili said, "the mouthy boy. Where did you pick him up?"
"We were in the temple together," Lilia said.
"He's trying to keep my husband from me. This whole camp is full of crazy fucking pacifists." Zezili dropped onto the bench beside Lilia. Grimaced at the mess of porridge. "You Dhai have shitty table manners. What the fuck is this?"
"Who is your husband?" Lilia asked.
"Anavha," Roh said. "The omajista." He pointed across the camp. Lilia turned. A big Tordinian man sat at a fire, taking instruction from someone showing him how to bind fireweed cord. Huddling beside him was a slight Dorinah man with a soft brown beard and sharp cheekbones who held a steaming cup of tea in his quaking hands.
"That Dorinah boy?" Lilia said. "Your husband is an omajista?"
Zezili looked genuinely shocked. "He's a what? That… no." She laughed. "No, that's not possible."
"He got us out of the temple," Roh said. "Opened a gate right there."
Zezili gaped. "What the fuck is happening?"
"Who's that man with him?" Lilia asked.
"Saradyn," Roh said.
"Fucker chopped off my hand," Zezili said, waving both hands at Lilia. "Called himself a king. Docile as a fucking lamb now, though. What the fuck did you do to him, kid?"
"Nothing," Roh said.
"He follows you?" Lilia asked.
"He listens to me," Roh said, but he would not look at her. "I don't know why. I asked him to look after Anavha."
Zezili snorted. "Fine irony, there." She scratched at her chest again. "Fucking shit," she said, and pulled up the tunic.
A raised red welt the size of Lilia's palm was pressed into Zezili's skin. The shape was instantly familiar: the trefoil with the tail, the one Lilia's mother had warded into her skin, the mark of the fifth temple, the one Kalinda had put into the box with Zezili's bones. The skin was rubbed raw and irritated.
"Itches like Rhea's cunt," Zezili said.
"Don't touch it!" Lilia said.
"What is that?" Roh said.
Lilia peered at the welt. Pressed her finger against it. The skin did not give. It was as if the silver trefoil Kalinda had put in the box had fused with Zezili's chest.
"A key?" Lilia said. "Kalinda put this piece in the box with you. She said we'd need it if we entered the fifth temple."
"Who is Kalinda?" Roh said.
Zezili waved a hand at him. "I've been asking her the same thing. Don't bother. Do you have any blood on you? Any you'd part with?"
Roh said, "There is something deeply wrong with you."
"No shit," Zezili said. "What the fuck are you two talking about?"
"Saving the world," Lilia said, tapping the symbol again.
"Fuck, enough!" Zezili said, jerking her tunic back down. "Why are we still talking about that? All this people are running the fuck away, which frankly, is a better fucking idea than any of the ones I've heard." Zezili grimaced at the porridge smeared all over the table. "That looks awful."
"Roh, if you've read that book, you know how to not just close the worlds, but… you know how to send the Tai Mora back, don't you? How to… kill them?"
Roh shook his head. "I… Li, if we're going to do this, it shouldn't be for revenge. If we leave it alone, the Tai Mora will close the ways between the worlds, and that's that."
"But, it can do so much more–"
"It can, but I don't think they'll figure that out. At least, I hope not."
"Hope is in short supply," Zezili said.
"I'm sorry, Li," Roh said. "I just… I really don't know. Let me think about this a little more, all right? Seeing everyone here has… I just need to think."
"Roh–"
"I'm going to help Kadaan."
"How? You're going to watch?" It came out crueler than she meant.
His face flushed. "Don't blame me," Roh said, "because you have nothing left to live for." He took his empty bowl with him and returned it to the kitchen tent. Then he stuffed his hands into his pockets and turned to the beach, the wind whipping his hair.
Zezili hooted. Slapped the table. "He must know you very well, to dig like that."
"We were friends once."
"I've never had friends."
"That doesn't surprise me."
"Nah," Zezili said. "We are just alike."
Lilia recoiled. "We are nothing alike."
"We get what we want. I do it with violence. You do it with deception. Weak little liar."
"I've never gotten anything I wanted!"
"I keep thinking I'll be like you, sacrificing myself for some bad cause–"
"Why, when there are so many good ones?" Lilia sneered.
"Don't cat-talk me, kid."
"I should have left you in your stupid box," Lilia said.
"I would have liked that. I wouldn't be so fucking itchy!"
"I'm not like you," Lilia repeated.
"Yeah, well, keep telling yourself that."
Lilia got up. "I'm going to go find someone in charge."
"Sure," Zezili said. She leaned closer to her. "Mind bleeding out a little here, into my cup, before you go? It's so good."
"Go murder something," Lilia said. She left Zezili staring morosely into her empty cup and made her way around the camp. She noted that the smell of smoke had gotten stronger. A few of the others commented on it; a runner had been sent out.
Lilia tried to figure out which of the Woodland Dhai elders to speak to, but everyone insisted there were no leaders. They were a collective. Lilia wanted to cry with frustration.
Maybe if she went back to Meyna… Meyna…! and Yisaoh with Zezili by her side, it would be more difficult to throw her out again. Zezili could protect her from the bone tree again. Lilia shivered at the memory. There was still time. She could make it right. She had come too far, given up too much, to stop now.
She walked along the edge of the camp, brooding. Lilia felt a prickling along her spine and turned, expecting to see Zezili creeping around, but Zezili still sat at the table, talking to another Dhai, probably attempting to weasel him out of his blood, or take it outright. Lilia swept her gaze across the camp as a cool sea wind tickled her hair across her face. What was that feeling?
And then Lilia saw him emerge from the woods, stepping on the heads of early blooming poppies. Behind him was a little figure, Dhai certainly, with tangled hair twisted back into braided knots. The Dhai person, she did not know, but his face she would never, could never forget.
Lilia stared.
He did not see her at first. Two of the camp's scouts accompanied him, and his gaze swept the camp, presumably looking for someone in charge.
He saw her.
Taigan touched his thumb to his forehead in Lilia's direction. That was a particularly cruel touch, she thought.
He crossed the camp and came right up to her, as if no time had passed, as if he had not abandoned her at the harbor wall, broken and burned out. As if they were good friends separated by circumstances.
"I suspected you outlasted them, little bird," Taigan said.
"We are both difficult to kill, it seems," she said slowly. It came out more confident than it felt.
"Life is full of little ironies," Taigan said, and his mouth turned up at the corners. The figure behind him wore long tattered trousers and a short coat, both of Tai Mora make. The features, the slender figure, the dark hair and eyes, could be either Dhai or Tai Mora. Had Taigan brought around another spy? "I believe we can be of help to one another."
"I can't imagine," Lilia said, "how a burned out omajista you once threw off a cliff could possibly help you in any way."
"You would be serving yourself, of course. Ending this conflict with the Tai Mora. Isn't that what we both want?"
"Is it?" Lilia said. "You left me on the wall."
"I was compelled home. I was not my own, then. You understand."
"I don't."
"I have a very brilliant plan."
"I'm sure," Lilia said. "You always do."
"It is," Taigan said, "a brilliant plan, that is, but I can't take credit for it. Luna can explain it in more depth," and he acknowledged the figure beside him with a tilt of his head. "There's a… device that channels the power of the satellites. We can use it to close the seams between the worlds."
Lilia laughed. "I have heard of it. Is that why you came here?"
"That is a pertinent question," Taigan said, "one I also wish had a different answer to. I was looking for the Saiduan allies that your little camp had made. You know your Catori, Meyna, she intends to run off with them."
"I don't have time for you," Lilia said. She turned away.
"Ah, wait," Taigan said. "I'm here because I know I was right all along."
"That was a revelation?"
"Let's say Luna is very familiar with how these temples, the engines, the beasts inside of them, operate. Luna has enlightened me during our many long days together."
"Roh is also familiar with it," Lilia said. "We don't need a second person."
"Roh?" Luna's eyes widened. It was the first thing they had said.
"Rohinmey," Lilia said, "yes."
"I need to find him, Taigan," Luna said, breathless.
"Down on the beach," Lilia said. "The path is there, middle of camp."
Luna ran. It clicked for Lilia, then. Was this the same Luna, the one Roh had fled south with? The other one who had originally translated the book?
Something the creature in Tira's temple had said came back to her. The heavens themselves will draw them together. She glanced up at the sky, the baleful eye of Oma, sparkling violet Sina, shimmering green Tira.
"Listen," Taigan said, leaning so close he startled her. "Luna was always a better translator than the boy. Suffice to say that though our people can power it, it was designed for one such as you to operate it. It's a bit complicated, but you have time to learn it."
"One such as me?"
"Someone motivated by revenge."
"Luna knows how to operate it?"
"More or less."
"That doesn't inspire confidence."
"Yes, well, what does these days?"
"I don't have any allies anymore, Taigan."
"You have me!" he said brightly. "What more do you need?"
"Taigan, the last time–"
"Yes, yes, the matter of the cliff. But this time I am much more confident. I have been proven right. I like it when I'm right."
"We can't do this, just the two of us."
"Three, with Luna! You are so hesitant. The Lilia I knew was bolder."
"She was also gifted," Lilia said.
"Not that you did much with it."
"You are so cheerfully unpleasant," Lilia said.
"What's the use of being miserably unpleasant, really?" Taigan said.
"I just… I don't know if we can do this without allies from Meyna, or Yisaoh." Lilia chewed at her fingernail. Taigan, Luna, Roh… she tried fitting all the pieces together. With Taigan they had one more omajista. With Luna – another person who could help navigate the temples, maybe? A Key and a Worldbreaker. Was Zezili the Key? Meyna and Ahkio were useless except in getting her access to more jistas. How to get into the fifth temple? That was the trick. How to convince Maralah and her people to help. What did Maralah have to gain? Everyone wanted to run away.
"Oh, well, you can ask them all about it soon," Taigan said.
"What?"
"You haven't heard?" Taigan snorted. "Oh, it's all the Woodland Dhai can natter about. We stayed with some of them for a few days on the journey here. The smoke? The Tai Mora just invaded your little pacifist Kai's camp. Your Dhai friends are on their way here. What a happy reunion we'll all have!"
"What!" Lilia cried. "How did the Tai Mora find them? I worked so hard to protect–"
Taigan tilted his head to the sky.
"What is it?" Lilia asked, following his gaze.
"Well," he said. "This is interesting."
|
(Worldbreaker Saga 3) The Broken Heavens
|
Kameron Hurley
|
[
"fantasy",
"LGBT",
"science fiction fantasy"
] |
[] |
Chapter 32
|
When Gian and her retinue had gone, Kirana went down to the Sanctuary to spend time with her children. They were alone at a far table. Their nursemaid was picking through the library stacks, presumably for something appropriate, considering their position here. As Kirana sat with them, Tasia nattered on brightly about what they had been learning, mostly Tai Mora history, which all three found fairly interesting, as it was largely about their immediate ancestors.
Tasia, Kirana thought, smoothing back the girl's dark hair from her face, my Tasia. Surely her children were the best versions possible. The only ones worth saving. Surely.
Corina and Moira, the elder two, were engaged in some memory game that Kirana only half paid attention to.
"When will Mam be with us?" Moira said as they finished their game. She had asked every day.
"Soon," Kirana said.
"You keep saying that," Corina said. "It's never happening, is it?" Brash, that one, little chin jutting toward her, dark eyes defiant.
"Hush, now," Kirana said. "I got you all over, didn't I? I saved us all, haven't I? When have I ever lied?"
Tasia smiled brightly. "You never did, Mama," she said. "You came for me too!"
Kirana kissed her forehead. "Of course I did. I always keep my promises. Always."
Dhai servants brought in dinner, and they ate together under the light of Oma streaming through the dome above. When they were done, their nursemaid took them up for baths and rest. Kirana watched them go, and then sat alone in the vast chamber, relishing the silence.
Kirana did not believe in any gods. Perhaps that was her personal failing. They were useful ways to explain the horror of the skies, and the random chance that gave one person unconscionable power and another a terrible craving for drink that murdered their guts and ruined their lives. It wasn't fair. It was simply life.
She pulled over one of the books Tasia had been reading. Something about raising dogs. Kirana realized that what she wanted more than anything was simply to raise daughters who were happy farmers and herders. Maybe a village elder or two.
The light in the room flickered, as if a great cloud were passing over Oma's eye. She squinted, still peering into the book. The lights began to flicker more intensely. She had to cover her eyes, fearful of a headache.
Hurried footsteps came from the hall. She opened her eyes, shielding her vision as she closed the book. One of the big Sanctuary doors creaked open.
Yivsa came in, breathless. "Did you see the sky?"
"What?" Kirana raised her gaze to the ceiling. The sky seemed to be spinning. She had to look away, overcome by vertigo. "What is–?"
"It's time," Yivsa said
Kirana stood, still a little wobbly. The light in the chamber flashed: red, blue, green, purple lightning. She needed to get out of here before it made her sick. "Give the order. Get them all into place. Is Gian still here?"
"Already en route back to the ark, but I can get a runner."
"Do it. Tell Madah I want a report from her assault on that camp full of Saiduan."
Kirana cast one last glance back into the room. She rested her hand on the skin of the temple. "Let's finish this, you fucker," she muttered, and closed the door behind her.
The sky shimmered.
Lilia had to shield her eyes. Something winked at them, a flickering blue star. A cracking boom filled the air.
The ground shuddered.
When Lilia looked again, Para gazed back at her, the three satellites sitting diagonally in the sky, with the larger, spinning mass of red Oma whirling closer and closer to them, as if threatening to burst them apart.
A brilliant cascade of bluish-amber light filled the sky. It was eerie, like something from a dream. The great face of Oma winked at her as the other satellites began to fall into orbit around it, blinking and flashing like something alive. Tira, Para, Sina, three pieces broken away from a much larger object, lining up again for the first time in two thousand years.
Cries came from the camp, all around them. The world looked, collectively, to the sky.
The satellites began to pulse and dance. They aligned themselves into orbit around Oma.
"Oh no," Lilia breathed.
Zezili ran up to her, huffing. "What the fuck…?" she said, and moved to shield Lilia, as if expected the stars to explode.
Maralah, from the head of the cavern trail, climbed back up into the camp. "We knew this was coming!" Maralah called. Behind her, Kadaan helped Roh up, both of them scrambling across the camp.
But no one could have known this was coming, really, Lilia thought. No one had seen this happen in two thousand years.
Sina, Para, and Tira began to slowly rotate around Oma, so near it was as if they were creating a new sun in the bleary violet sky.
"If those things collide, we might be fucked," Zezili said. "I mean, shit, nothing you can do now, huh?"
"The hand of Oma," Lilia said. "If only they would."
The three satellites, rotating around the fourth, instead came so close to one another's orbits that they had the appearance of a single flickering eye spilling ghostly red-violet light across the world.
Maralah strode across the camp toward them. Lilia took her gaze away from the sky, glanced back at Taigan.
"You!" Maralah said, and while the sky seethed, the air all around Lilia grew heavy as spoiled milk.
Taigan waved at Maralah. "Hello, Maralah! It's been an age. Isn't this delightful? No one has seen such a show in two thousand years! What a time to be alive."
Lilia's ears popped.
"Maralah!" Lilia called. "Don't! He's here to… help. Inasmuch as Taigan helps. Don't start using your gift here! Not now!"
Maralah stared at Lilia as if she were mad. "I'm not!" she said. "Who is… Are you pulling, Taigan? I'm not calling Sina."
The smell of smoke grew stronger. Lilia turned back to the woods. "Taigan?" she said. "How far back were those people coming from Meyna and Yisaoh's camp?"
"Oh, a day," he said. "But I told the scouts I encountered that it would be nice to blink them over here instead of making them walk. It turns out you have an omajista here who's very good with winks, they said. A Dorinah boy? Remarkable."
The air crackled. Voices came from the woodlands. The wind picked up.
Lilia shivered. The sense of foreboding had to do with more than the sky. All this power, all these omajistas in one place, these gates opening and closing… they were painting a target on this beachhead.
"Stop them," Lilia said. "Maralah! Have everyone drop their star! Stop pulling on your stars!"
As she cried out, the spill of refugees came up from the woods, bringing with them the smell of burnt hair and smoke. Kai Ahkio walked at the front, Meyna behind him. Ahkio carried a child – Meyna's? Lilia's heart clenched. Where was Tasia? Namia?
"Drop your call on the stars!" Lilia said, limping toward them, half-hoping for good news, for a miracle.
A roaring blur knocked into her, putting her onto her back. Namia lay on top of her, squeezing her tightly.
"Namia!" Lilia held her as the others streamed past. "Emlee?"
Namia made the sign for "taken."
"Tasia? Oh no, Tasia."
"Death," Namia signed.
Lilia got to her feet. Namia loped after her.
The smoke overhead grew lower and thicker as the wind shifted. Meyna, face blushed from exertion, sweaty tendrils stuck her forehead, hurried to Maralah's side, one hand pressed against her burgeoning belly.
"Shao Maralah!" Meyna said. "You must know. We were attacked. The camp, the whole camp, as if they knew exactly where it was. Who would have told them, after all this time? We never–"
"You fool," Maralah said. "You've led them right here! How many are with you?"
"Not many," Meyna said. "Maralah, I know it's too soon, but our partnership–"
Maralah slapped her. Meyna fell heavily, clutching at her belly. Ahkio put the child down and ran to her, as did her husbands Rhin and Hadao. Hadaoh drew an infused weapon. Maralah burnt it from his hand. He cried out, clutching at his seared skin.
Lilia held Namia close.
"We were careful," Meyna said. "No one was–"
"You bloody fool," Maralah said. "As if you ungifted wretches would be able to tell if a Tai Mora scout trailed you."
The air thickened again, so heavily this time Lilia lost her breath.
This wasn't just the people in the camp drawing on the satellite's power, or even the Dhai refugees. This was something far worse. Far, far stronger.
Oh, Oma, she thought.
The air around the camp began to shiver and ripple like water. Lilia knew exactly what this was, and if she had any breath at all in her aching lungs, she would have screamed.
All around them, reality began to tear away. A dozen searing gates parted the woodlands surrounding the camp, cut tents in half, sawed through unlucky bystanders. Their yawning mouths vomited forth a wave of Tai Mora soldiers, all shiny in their chitinous armor, their infused weapons held aloft.
The smell of burning intensified. Lilia heard someone screaming, screaming. The trees above them lit up, instantly torched. Bits of char and winking embers rained from the sky.
Namia tugged at her hand, but Lilia found herself rooted to the spot, unable to move, frozen in some nightmare. It was all happening again, an endless cycle. One fiery raid after another, on this very spot, in some other world, and now here, with infused weapons: Kirana's army, invading world after world. She imagined a whole slew of Kiranas from a hundred thousand, a million worlds, cutting through these people, torching this same wood, again and again, as they had done to her people before, as they were doing to their people now.
Lilia reached. She was not sure what she reached for, something deep within her long lost. For so long she was filled with only revenge, hatred for these people. For everything they had done, were doing, again and again.
But as she watched it all happening again, here, on the same spot, she saw it for what it was. Something terribly broken. One people, ripped apart into a million, trillion pieces.
How could they ever be put back together again?
Screaming. The woods themselves were screaming.
|
(Worldbreaker Saga 3) The Broken Heavens
|
Kameron Hurley
|
[
"fantasy",
"LGBT",
"science fiction fantasy"
] |
[] |
Chapter 33
|
It All happened very quickly, in a breath. Para rising. The incredible movement of the sky that awed and distracted. The winks opening. The air seething.
But Lilia was not awed. Not frozen. She had been waiting for this for a year. Waiting to fight back. Lilia moved.
"Roh!" Lilia yelled. "Defensive wall!"
Another parajista may have hesitated. One she did not know, maybe. One who had not been hounded and abused as Roh had after Para winked out a year ago.
But it was Roh, her friend Roh, the one who always wanted to be a sanisi, and so the shimmering wall of air whumped across the camp and smashed into the winks all around them an instant after her cry.
Kadaan raised a fist beside Roh. Dust rose from the ground. Bits of sand trembled and filled the air.
Lilia hurried over to them, calling to Zezili, "Get everyone with a weapon! Defensive line!"
Zezili leapt over the table. "Fucking finally!" she said and then, in Dhai, "Everyone with a fucking shield and a weapon, I want a defensive circle!"
"Taigan?" Lilia called back over her shoulder.
"There are fifty-six Songs of Unmaking coming through those winks," he said, following her. He shrugged. "I can't hold them all."
"Try," she said. She pushed past the mobs of frightened and mobilizing fighters and others, trying to get to Maralah. Namia followed after her, silent. Lilia finally climbed onto a table and called, "Fighters to the outside! Those who can't fight, come to the middle! The center!" Panic could make people into mindless, self-destructive fools if no one took charge. Lilia had seen it before, on the harbor wall, and again during the madness of Kuallina.
Roh felt the air shift the moment he reached the trailhead. He was giddy, awed, already drawing deeply on Para. He and Kadaan had hugged back on the beach, delighted to be able to draw on their stars again, but Maralah was already running back to the camp, peering at the sky like some grim omen.
That had shaken him, and they went back up the trail after her, Roh using the delightful tails of Para's breath to speed himself along, fairly flying, no longer the shuffling final figure to crest the top of the trail.
But the air was wrong. He dropped onto the sand. Lilia shouted at him from more than thirty paces away. "Roh!" and he was already drawing on Para again, the Litany of the Palisade already half-formed in his mind, "Defensive wall!" He saw the gates opening in the next moment, already tying up his spell. He cast the defensive walls almost before she had finished, throwing up a hasty bubble of air around the camp as the twining blue bursts of Para's breath poured into the camp through the gates and attacked his defenses.
Kadaan reinforced his work, putting up a tougher defense on the inner layer of his.
"We need to layer these," Kadaan said. "You've done that?"
"No," Roh said.
"Watch me, then. This is the Song of Davaar, and the Song of the Proud Wall."
Roh was aware of the rest of the camp moving, and Lilia shouting. But he concentrated solely on Kadaan's voice and the purling lines of Para's breath he wielded. Even as they came together, Roh felt the hammering of their defenses, like physical blows that pushed the power of Para back under his skin. It might have startled him enough to break his concentration, a year ago, two years ago, but now he was far more used to pain and disappointment.
"It will get worse," Kadaan said, "as they realize how strong this wall is."
"I have endured worse," Roh said.
Lilia went to Maralah's side. Maralah stood rooted in place, hands raised, gaze fierce. A wall of flames licked up around the defensive wall of air, but Tai Mora were still bleeding through the edges of the winks, crowding around the outer edges of the defenses.
"Can you hold them?" Lilia asked.
Maralah did not answer. Lilia turned, surveying the camp. Fighters were moving to the outer ring of the camp, harangued by a gleeful Zezili. They were mostly Saiduan, who looked to Maralah before obeying. Maralah, for her part, gave them a nod.
Lilia broke away from Maralah, Roh and Kadaan. Taigan had said there were fifty-six Songs of Unmaking, that was fifty-six attempts to cut off their jistas from their satellites. The number of offensive spells that the others had to counteract would be far, far more. It would be all they could do to hold them.
She found Anavha cowered at the center of the group of civilians. "Where's Saradyn?" she asked.
"He went to fight," Anavha said.
Lilia leaned over him. Took his arm. Said in Dorinah, "Can you open a gate to somewhere safe?"
"I… in Dhai? I don't… the plateau, the temples… they are everywhere–"
"Somewhere else?"
"They are everywhere," Anavha said, and began to cry.
Lilia took a deep breath. "Somewhere safe. In Dorinah?"
"No, not–" he broke off, then, "Aaldia," he said, and that seemed to stem the terror, the tears. "I can take us to the farm in Aaldia."
"A farm? Good. That's good. No Tai Mora there?"
"No, but–"
"What?"
"It's all right. Nusi will understand."
"I'm sure they will," Lilia said, having no idea who Nusi was, nor particularly caring in that moment. "Can you do it now?"
"What if the defenses break? What if–"
"A great many things could happen between this moment and the next," Lilia said. "Including you getting us a way out. Can you do that?"
He nodded.
She stepped back, giving him space to work, and called away a few of the civilians near them. The last thing she needed was panic at the center. Panic at the center would make them all rush to the edges, and right into the Tai Mora.
Lilia spotted a reasonably calm young man and pointed at him. "You! Keep them away from him. Let him work!" The man nodded almost gratefully, as if pleased to have something to do.
She hurried back to the medical tent where Sola was frantically packing her things and yelling at people to move one of her injured patients.
"Sola!" Lilia said. "We are getting everyone out through a gate, there, at the center – see that young man, the one with the brown hair? You and your patients go first. We'll need you on the other side for injuries."
"Where–"
"It doesn't matter where," Lilia said, "it's safe." She said the last part with more conviction than she felt. She had to trust that Anavha had some idea of what he was doing, or she'd spend too long overthinking instead of moving. Their survival relied on fast movement, before the Tai Mora got a handle on their defenses. The parajista wall could go down at any time.
Lilia knew that nine parts of getting people to listen to you relied on confidence. Sola met her gaze, and she must have liked what she saw, because she nodded and called for another to help her move the injured.
"Zezili!" Lilia called.
"Fucking busy!" Zezili barked from ten paces away.
"Namia," Lilia said. "Come here, I need you to be my messenger, can you do that?"
Namia nodded.
Lilia grabbed Zezili, made her touch Namia's head.
"The fuck!" Zezili said. She handed over a weapon to a young woman.
"Namia," Lilia said. "Show her the sign for retreat."
Namia did.
"And show her, fall back. Good. And advance."
Namia gave the signs.
"You understand?" Lilia said. "Namia can give you orders."
"I can fucking manage this myself–"
"You can manage jistas and fighters against Tai Mora, in three different languages? No. Listen to me."
Lilia turned abruptly.
A roar of heated air blasted her from behind. Lilia pressed herself to the ground as a purl of flame licked overhead. One of the forces on the other side had broken though. Roh and Kadaan were already moving forward together, back to back, exchanging a few words as they sought to shore up the breach.
Lilia crawled back up. Namia came after her. Lilia went to Anavha, who was still struggling to open a gate. The air in front of him wavered, but did not part. He sweated heavily, and was trembling.
She leaned close to him and said softly, clearly, "The Song of the One Breath. You know it?"
He shook his head. "What's your litany?"
"Poetry. Tordinian?"
She wondered how he had been trained. Did they try to break him down, the way Taigan and the Seekers had tried to break her? Lilia didn't think she could feel pity anymore, didn't think she could feel anything at all, but watching this young man struggle to save them while the air pressure heaved and the air crackled, she remembered the feel of the Seeker Voralyn's stick when the Seekers captured her years ago, and the long freefall when Taigan pushed her over the edge of the cliff, daring her to fly. I am not you, Taigan, she thought. And this young man was certainly not her.
"All right," she said. "Find a point to focus on. That broken poppy there, see?" She pointed.
His gaze fixed on the trampled flower just on the other wide of the wavering air.
"Good," she said. "That's all there is. You and that… poetry. That song. The rest of this is nothing. It's not anyway. You want to focus on that, and where you want to go. Where do you want to be?"
"Not here."
"It has to be firm. Focus. See it. Taste it. Smell it." She closed her own eyes, remembering how she had sung the Saiduan Song of the Dead and burned the image of the Dorinah camp at the base of the Liona mountains into her mind, where Gian had waited for her. An age ago. Before Oma was lost to her.
Anavha smelled smoke. All he could see, when he closed his eyes, was the world burning.
"Smoke," Anavha said.
"Not there. There's no smoke there. What's there?"
He trembled. He felt the heat and rush of the wind again. Another breach in their defenses. Yelling, in Dhai and Saiduan. He couldn't understand any of it, only what Lilia told him in Dorinah, and that frightened him and soothed him at the same time.
Safe. Where had he been safe? He once thought safety was a quiet house with Daolyn, when Zezili was away. Safety was sitting with Taodalain in the city, reading to her as her pregnancy progressed. He once thought safety was Zezili calling him hers. And for a time, yes, he had felt safe with Natanial, wrapped in his arms, ready to give him whatever he wanted because Anavha felt so safe there.
But when Lilia asked him where he felt safe, the image that bloomed in his mind was none of those places. Instead, it was rolling fields of golden grass. A house nestled among the hills that looked like a boat at sea. Safety was with Nusi and Giska and their rotating group of farm hands, called in during planting and harvest. Laughing at the table. Warm, clean beds. No violence. No raised voices. It had not been exciting, or dangerous. That made him anxious, those first few months. He kept waiting for the screaming. The flaring tempers. Getting locked in his room. Having things thrown at him. Fists raised to him. None of that happened.
"Nothing will happen to you here that you do not wish to happen," Nusi had told him, and the idea of that, the promise of it, was breathtaking.
"The farm," Anavha said aloud. "The planted fields. The dead man, from the sky. The hungry sheep. The dogs. I miss the dogs."
He opened his eyes. A small tear in the seams between their position and the next opened.
"A little more, Anavha," Lilia said.
Anavha concentrated on exactly where he wanted to be, the precise spot. The hill north of the farm, overlooking the house.
The tear widened into a great round door, so large he gasped a little and stepped back from it. On the other side: a clear lavender sky, and rolling golden hills.
Lilia said, "Can you hold it open there, Anavha? I need you to keep hold of it."
"I have it," he said. And in a rush of awe, he realized that he did have it. The gate solidified. Did not waver. His hands did not tremble.
Natanial winced as the winks opened, and a shimmering wall of heat blasted their front line. The heat was unexpected.
"Hold the line!" Natanial called. The heat was enough to be uncomfortable, but not dangerous, as long as no one panicked.
Otolyn gazed over at him, questioning. He shook his head. Para was risen, and that did mean that a whole slew of parajistas had come back into their power. Natanial had a moment to wonder how Monshara would handle that. Four stars ascendant. Were there even existing battle strategies for that? Surely not.
"Forward!" Monshara cried, and the mass of bodies and bears and dogs was moving, groaning, creaking, yipping, growling.
The heat intensified, and as Natanial got closer to the winks, he saw a small but chaotic scene ahead. As he came through, a whirlwind of air and fire battered him. The spinning satellites made him dizzy, so he kept his focus on the ground. They were up above the sea on some spur of land. He smelled burning, yes, but the sea, too. Madah had opened a dozen winks around a small encampment. It couldn't have held more than sixty people, all of them grouped up in the middle.
Natanial tried to push forward, but his troops ahead were meeting resistance. Parajistas had a wall up, and waves of fire were coming off it, pushing his troops and all those surrounding them back against the winks.
"Hold the line!" Natanial yelled. Who was countering their attack? It should have been an ambush, no time to plan or retaliate. They should have crushed them here as easily as they had back at the other camp.
Natanial scanned the figures at the center of the camp. Whoever their jistas were, they were in no formation, no line. He could not identify a leader of any kind. Two rings of fighters had formed around those in the center, though, which meant the center likely held both civilians and jistas.
"We're useless until they break the jista defenses!" Otolyn yelled.
Natanial growled. He hated foolish orders and confusion. She was right. Madah had gotten ahead of herself. His mercenaries were going to break and bolt at the next wave of fire; he knew his people weren't high on the list of those Monshara's jistas were going to protect.
"Retreat and regroup!" Natanial called.
Otolyn swapped flags and blew into the horn attached to her saddle.
His troops were not dignified or orderly. They simply turned and ran, breaking hard for the winks behind them.
A shrieking above the din of frantic soldiers, the huff of wind and fire. Natanial peered ahead as his soldiers streamed back through the wink all around him. The defensive barrier around the Dhai camp was shrinking, contracting. The ring of defensive fighters moved back with it.
How were they retreating? Where?
Natanial caught a glimpse through the shimmering defensive wall of air, and thought his eyes must be deceiving him.
There was Anavha, moving among the heads of the others – he could not mistake that willowy frame, that long face, and the silky brown hair, so out of place among the black-haired Dhai and Saiduan.
And standing next to Anavha – though it was impossible, as impossible as the blinking quad of satellites in the sky – was Zezili Hasaria.
When the winks appeared, Ahkio saw his moment. He sought out Caisa. There, near to him, as she had always been. He ran from Meyna's side in all the chaos and reached for Caisa's hand.
"Do you trust me?" he whispered, urgently.
"Kai, what–"
"Come with me," he said. "Take my hand. I need you to help me draw out Yisaoh."
"Catori Yisaoh? Why?"
"Please, Caisa. Trust me one last time."
Winks were opening all around them. Ahkio scooped up Hasao, as Rhin and Hadaoh were now trapped by the press of fearful people, all pressing together toward the center of camp.
Ahkio looked for Yisaoh. Nodded at her. "Come! Yisaoh, this way!"
He charged through the gap between two winks, heading for the cover of the woodlands. Hasao screamed, the loud, piercing scream of a fearful child. The screaming child and the smoke made him think of the way his mother had screamed when he tried to save her.
The air assaulted him. A blast of it took him off his feet. Yisaoh yelled and tumbled beside him. Caisa reached for Yisaoh to help her up.
Ahkio let the child go; she tottered a few paces and then sat in the brush, still screaming, frozen. The child, at least, would live. Something would outlast him.
Ahkio rounded on Yisaoh before she had time to get up. He hit her on the nose stunning her.
Caisa gasped. "Ahkio!"
"Help me hold her!" Ahkio said.
"But, I–"
"Caisa!"
Caisa ran to him and twisted Yisaoh's arms behind her back. Yisaoh was strong, and it took the two of them to hold her down.
"You fucking traitor!" Yisaoh screamed at them, and kicked him.
The Tai Mora swarmed forward from the winks, enveloping the camp, oblivious to them behind the main line of winks. Ahkio yanked Yisaoh up. "This is the only way!" he said.
A Tai Mora noticed them, then, blade drawn.
"We surrender!" Ahkio said, raising his hands, releasing Yisaoh. Yisaoh tried to twist away, but Caisa still held her, mouth an open moue, confusion still twisted on her face. "Kirana. I need to see Kirana. I'm her brother. Do you understand?"
The soldier hesitated.
Two more came over. "I'm her brother!" Ahkio insisted. "I have someone she wants!"
Ahkio spotted a woman on a bear, someone with far more authority than this group, and bolted past the soldiers.
"I have Yisaoh!" Ahkio yelled at her. "I have Yisaoh!"
The woman leaned over and took him by the collar. "Where?" the woman said.
Ahkio pointed.
Lilia gestured to Sola. "Go, now. Fast as you can."
After Sola came the children and their parents, running over in groups of two, three, six.
When they were moving well, without panic, she turned her attention back to the jistas. They were all still rooted at the top of the path leading down to the beach. Kadaan and Roh had shifted only a few paces.
Taigan made his way over to her, but his look was more intense than she had ever seen it.
"There are more omajistas coming," he said. "I'm holding thirty-seven Songs of Unmaking right now. Whoever they are bringing through is very powerful. I can feel them pushing already."
"Anavha has a gate," Lilia said. "I need to figure out… We'll need to start compressing the circle, falling back to the gate."
"We can't let them see where we're going," Taigan said. "They will be able to follow."
"I need every jista we have," Lilia said. "I can't leave any of them."
"Not even me?"
Lilia turned away from him. "Not even you, you fool," she said, and then, to Maralah, "We need to pull back to the gate! We have a gate!"
"Namia," Lilia then said. "Go to Zezili. Tell her, fall back. Tighten the circle. You may need to… show her that one. Go, please."
Namia raised her head, cocked it, sniffed a long moment, then ran in Zezili's direction.
"Maralah!" Lilia called again. "Pull back to the gate."
Maralah shook her head, the barest movement. "Move the gate."
"I can't, Maralah. He can barely keep it open as it is. It would take too long for him to open–"
"If we pull in these defenses," Kadaan said, "it will let more of them in. We won't be able to hold–"
"We won't have to," Lilia said. "Pull back quickly. Speed. Speed, all right? We only have speed and surprise. You understand."
Kadaan looked to Maralah.
Maralah was clearly in pain. The amount of power she was pulling had to be much more than Lilia had ever tried, certainly more than she'd ever attempted without burning herself out. But she moved her chin, once.
"Stages," Kadaan said to Roh. "Ten paces. Break for one. Ten paces."
"Start moving to the gate as you pull it," Lilia said.
Namia returned as Lilia went back to the shimmering gate. Lilia asked, "Is she coming?"
"Unknown," Namia signed, which didn't bode well. Zezili had been switching back and forth between speaking Dorinah and Dhai, and it was possible whatever response she'd given Namia had been full of Dorinah curse words that Namia wouldn't understand.
"She'll figure it out when the defensive walls move," Lilia said.
Zezili had not had this much fun in some time. She delighted in the opportunity to boss around the Saiduan, though she was not oblivious to the fact that Maralah had given them leave to listen to her. Some fool had given her a sword, and she held it aloft in her strong right hand, gripping the hilt like the cock of a long-lost lover. She kissed the blade. How had she gone so long trying to murder people with her left hand? This was fucking excellent.
She yelled a lot in Dhai, which she hated, but she knew only three words in Saiduan, and they were all filthy curses. She deployed those liberally, too.
"Everyone with a shield, start a defensive line!" she called, and demonstrated with two Dhai defenders and their paltry shields. She slammed the bottoms of the shields into the dirt, just a pace away from the shimmering air of the defensive wall. "There will be breaches! Cracks! You will murder every fucking thing that breaches! Nothing will get past you! You are the final line!"
Zezili was relieved to see the Saiduan had better weapons. She found she needed to pull the ring of fighters back ten more paces, though, because she did not have enough to make a tight circle right up by the wall. She didn't like that.
As she pulled them back, she saw a boiling mass of movement at one of the gates to her left. A woman on a bear shouted something and was pushed into the defensive wall so hard her helmet came off, revealing a tangle of black hair knotted in white ribbons. Gray eyes, a rounded face with a broad nose and narrow jaw. Monshara?
Monshara barked at her troops. Zezili found herself rooted, captivated by the spectacle. Monshara, as if sensing her, raised her head. Their gazes met.
A beat, no more, and then Monshara turned again, yelling at her troops, forcing them to pour around the defensive wall instead of getting stuck back through the gate behind it. She took hold of someone near her bear's head and bent over.
Zezili thought it was a Tai Mora, but no, she recognized his face, too: Ahkio. Monshara shook him.
How the fuck had Ahkio gotten himself stuck outside the defensive wall?
Namia darted to Zezili's side and tugged at her sleeve. Zezili shrugged her off and yelled at two soldiers with a break in their shield line.
Namia signed at her again, huffed, and ran off.
Zezili spotted a break in the wall of air and darted over to help the collection of fighters. Six Tai Mora squeezed through, and the line broke up, trying to surround them.
"Hold that fucking line!" Zezili roared in Dorinah, and switched to Dhai as she plunged into the fray, yelling at her line to reform.
She slashed the throat of the nearest Tai Mora and heaved the body onto the one behind. The wall had sealed up again. Zezili hamstrung a heavy man and chopped at his head. Her sword wasn't sharp enough to sever it, but blood gushed from his jugular, and he fell, tripping up the one behind.
Zezili stabbed the one who'd fallen and landed a palm strike to the woman coming up behind her. A knife glanced off Zezili's elbow. She knocked the wielder in the chin with her other elbow and dipped forward, stabbing at the fourth attacker just as one of her fighters got a spear into the Tai Mora's ribs.
When she came up, sword raised across her body, her fighters stood around the little mound of bodies, staring at her.
"What are you looking at?" she demanded. "Reform the line!"
The wall of air behind her knocked into her back. She swore and came forward. The defensive wall was moving.
"Back ten paces!" Zezili shouted. As the fighters moved, she knelt quickly next to the man she'd hacked in the neck and drank a handful of sweet, sweet blood. It felt magnificent going down her throat, like a restorative liquor. She grinned.
As she leapt over the bodies to retreat ahead of the wall with her fighters, she noted the pain in her elbow. Brought it up and regarded it. A long slash in her flesh, gooey. It oozed a pale greenish fluid, thick as old blood. Zezili shivered and looked away.
Whatever the fuck had happened to her, she was going to enjoy the time she had left.
|
(Worldbreaker Saga 3) The Broken Heavens
|
Kameron Hurley
|
[
"fantasy",
"LGBT",
"science fiction fantasy"
] |
[] |
Chapter 34
|
Refugees from Lilia's old camp were passing through the gate now, pouring through to the other side. Lilia knew many of their faces, and found herself still looking for Emlee and Tasia.
Meyna stood just to the other side of the gate, ushering her people through. Lilia caught her gaze; Meyna looked away first. A bruise was forming on her cheek from where Maralah had hit her.
"Where are Ahkio and Yisaoh?" Lilia called, trying to peer at Meyna through the crowd.
"I don't know," she said. "I lost them in the panic. Ahkio took up our child and ran. Yisaoh followed. My husband Rhin found Hasao, but said Ahkio and Yisaoh were being led the other way, by… the Tai Mora."
"Hasao was the child he carried into the camp, as well?"
"My child," Meyna said. "His and mine. She's safe."
The last of the soot-stained refugees made it past them. "You go," Lilia told Meyna. "The fighters are next."
Meyna glanced back at the ring of fighters. They had moved in ten paces, and so had the defensive wall. Even as they both watched, the ring of fighters moved in another five paces, and the jistas began making their way to the gate, rapidly.
Meyna nodded and went through. One of her husbands helped her on the other side.
Big Saradyn came up with some fighters. "Go through," she told him, but he stood rigid, peering at her.
"Go!" she said.
"No ghosts," he murmured, in Dorinah.
"Please," Lilia said.
"Impostor," he said, pointing a large figure at her.
"Who? I'm not… I don't…" Oh no, Lilia thought, Roh had said the man could tell who was from this world, and who was not. He was far larger than her, muscled and menacing. She had no recourse against him.
"Roh is my friend," Lilia said. "If he is your friend too, then we can be friends together."
Saradyn's eyes narrowed. "Patron-killer," he said. "Wait."
Lilia had no idea what he meant, but he turned to watch Roh advancing when he said it.
The fighters streamed past her. Zezili took up a position opposite her at the gate now, yelling at everyone in Dhai to hurry. "When are we going?" Zezili asked her, because of course they would have to go through together.
"After Roh," she said, glad to see that Saradyn was still distracted. "The jistas. They'll be able to hold the wall."
Beside her, Anavha said, "We need to hurry." The gate wavered, wrinkled and snapped back open, like a blinking eye. One of the fighters lost the end of her spear, which thunked at their feet.
"Go, go!" Lilia urged the last four fighters, and then they were down to the jistas. Maralah, Roh and Kadaan were just steps away. Taigan stood beside Zezili already, mustering something darkly as the surging mass of Tai Mora spilled from the other gates, so many and so fast that they were a living wall of flesh.
"You last," Lilia said to Taigan. "As soon as you drop, they will cut you all off. Maralah, go."
Maralah shook her head. Gestured to Roh and Kadaan.
Kadaan grimaced, but took Roh by the sleeve and dipped through the gate. They continued to hold the defensive wall from the other side. As long as they had line of sight–
A burst of air knocked Lilia back. She fell against Namia and grabbed the edge of the gate to right herself. The edges of it were a physical thing, like the frame of a window. Maralah burned up six Tai Mora who had broken through the air wall.
"That's it!" Maralah said. "Taigan, a burst! Distract and retreat."
Taigan smiled, one of his delighted and frightening smiles. "Bird," he said, "go now."
"Anavha," Lilia said, "come through with me. Keep it open for them. Can you move and keep it open?"
He nodded.
Lilia took Namia's hand and stepped through the gate, stumbled. Zezili came after her, and grabbed her arm to help her regain her balance. She went past Roh and Kadaan, still holding their defensive walls through the rent in the world. Lilia reached back for Anavha. Grabbed his hand and encouraged him to come through. The edges of the gate wavered again.
Anavha was through.
Maralah and Taigan blocked the other side of the gate, working a spell in tandem that Lilia could not see, but she could sense. The air on this side was as heavy as the other. The pressure in her ears was so intense it affected her hearing. It was like being underwater.
Of course Taigan despised Maralah, but then, he despised a good many people.
He had also fought beside her for over two decades. Not so long, by his reckoning of time, but long when he considered how many other people he had been forced to put up with for any length of time. When it was just the two of them remaining, facing down twelve open gateways pouring hundreds of Tai Mora at them, well, he had an idea of their choices in such a situation.
She no longer had a ward on him. He could do to her what he liked and walk away, burning through all of these foreign jistas and running off merrily into the woods or swimming endlessly across the sea, if he chose.
Taigan had a long, bitter memory. In this moment, facing the seething hordes of Tai Mora, he was reminded of Aaraduan, and how the black, slithering plant flesh swarmed the blue walls of the hold, even as the living hold spat and hissed at them. Para, Lord of the Air, had not protected them then. The satellites had abandoned them. The Patron was dead. What were they in this moment, two cursed figures without a country, saving a bunch of pacifist cannibals? To what end?
Maralah tilted her head at him. The air was so heavy it felt like drinking soup.
He snorted at her. Raised his hands. Called for Oma, as much and as quickly as his body allowed.
"Five second delay?" Taigan asked.
"No," Maralah said. "One hundred paces out, though."
"That will hurt you."
"I thought you'd like that."
"I do."
They called upon their stars, and wove a deadly burst of power in the air twenty paces out, right up against the wall of air.
Maralah made a sign, most likely to Kadaan, behind them. Taigan recognized it.
Drop the wall.
Taigan released his tangled spell, and braced for the blowback.
A massive blast of heat and air rushed through the wink, sending Taigan and Maralah with it. Lilia didn't have time to move out of the way. The blast took the nearest of those at the gate off their feet, throwing them ten paces or more away.
Lilia landed in a tangle of others, ears ringing. She pushed her way back to the gate – it was still open. A great crater of fire consumed everything on the other side, but already figures were moving out of it.
"Anavha!" she called, but even to her own ears, her voice was muted, far away.
Anavha was key to everything. Without him they were stuck here, with no time to get back before Para left the sky. How would she manage that? Ships took days, days they did not have, not now.
Lilia stared out at a great rolling horizon; golden fields of grass as far as she could see. She pivoted, taking in the sheer breadth of it. She had never seen so much open space.
As she came round again, a farmhouse came into view, or rather, she assumed it was a farmhouse; it looked more like a ship, strung with riggings on which plants twined their way up from sod gardens to insulate the roof. The house itself was half-buried in the ground and carved with totems, like those on the prows of Aaldian ships, but these totems were charred, and the grass on the sod roof, too, had burned, as well as a good chunk of grassland out behind the house.
She caught sight of Anavha's brown hair and slender form, and hurried over to him. He lay in the broken grass, staring at the charred house.
"Oh no," he said. "Oh no."
He got up and ran for the house. Lilia called after him, but he kept running. She would never catch him, so didn't attempt it.
Behind her, the gate was still open; smoke and heat poured from it, swirling up and up into the great lavender sky. The Tai Mora lines were advancing, swarming over their fallen comrades.
"Taigan!" Lilia said. He sat up. His eyebrows were singed, and blisters formed on his hands. Beside him, Maralah was vomiting.
"Where is he?" Taigan rasped. "He needs to shut this."
"He's run to the house."
"Undisciplined children," he muttered.
Lilia glanced through the gate. "They're coming," she said. "If they know where we are–"
"They won't," Maralah said. She released another wave of fire, less strong than the first, and pulled out her blade. She began to hum softly. Her blade glowed deep red, then violet.
The attackers on the other side fell; one, then another, a fourth, a sixth…
The gate winked shut.
Maralah fell to her knees, letting her blade fall beside her.
"What was that?" Lilia said.
"Souls," Maralah said. She shook her head. "Sometimes drawing on and releasing souls can upset the stability of the gates."
"You just… you made a guess about what might work?"
Maralah snorted. "You didn't? How did you think so quickly? Most people, even sanisi, panic and freeze. You moved. You knew where each of us were. Knew the strategy for jistas and fighters. Or you just guessed!"
"I took the measure of the camp when I came in. I was already looking for allies and making plans. That's… what I've been doing for a year now."
"What plan?"
"There is nowhere you can run," Lilia said carefully. "Have they showed you that yet?"
Maralah curled a lip at her and turned on her heel. Lilia's shoulders sagged. She took in the measure of who had made it to the other side.
Meyna stood apart with her family, directing the Dhai, answering questions. The Dhai from her camp had moved a little apart. The Saiduan collected near Maralah.
Lilia limped over to Meyna. "There's a well," Lilia said, pointing it out beyond the dog pens. "I think there are some sheep on the other side as well. The Saiduan will make neat work of that. But there may be something in the cellars."
Meyna did not look at her. "Thank you," she said, "we are aware."
"There aren't even two hundred people here, Meyna," Lilia said. "You lost them all. Will you listen to me or not? We aren't working at cross-purposes."
Meyna rounded on Lilia and moved away from the others, so they could not be overheard. "I won't let my people be used in some–"
"And how did that work for you?" Lilia said. "I am not here to be spiteful. I will tell you that being left for dead in a bone tree is not great fun. But you see it now, don't you? They won't stop until we're dead."
Maralah interrupted them. "Come with me. Roh, Kadaan, you too. And Luna. Yes, I see you, little Luna. The house, there."
"I'm coming," Zezili said, pushing her way through the crowd. "Don't try to leave me with these Dhai."
Lilia followed after Maralah, Namia at her side and Luna trailing after them both. They arrived inside the house, which bore a great charred hole in the ceiling where the sod roof had been burned and collapsed. She did not see any bodies, though, and the place had clearly been ransacked.
Anavha sat weeping in the back hall. Taigan sat at the great table in the center, eating a raw tuber from a bag. Soot covered everything.
Lilia went to Anavha and said, "This was your home?"
He nodded.
"Do you… see them?"
Anavha shook his head. "No one. No one's here."
"That's good," Lilia said. "That means they probably got away."
Roh approached her, gesturing for her to go back to the table with Maralah and the others. He sat next to Anavha.
"Why waste time with that boy?" Taigan grunted.
"Without him all of us would have been killed," Lilia said.
Taigan shrugged. "I would have been fine."
"We need to discuss next steps," Maralah said. "Where can he get us to next?"
"Only places he's seen," Roh said. "Anavha can't get us to Hrollief, or anywhere else. We could try Dorinah? But that's all Tai Mora territory now. Where is there to run? They've conquered everything!"
"No more running," Lilia said. "You've seen what they can do. Let's stop them now. Aren't you tired of running? I am."
Maralah peered at her. Sooty, weary, certainly bone tired, after the energy she had exerted on the beachhead. "What's your plan then?"
"What's yours?" Lilia countered.
Maralah grimaced. She pressed her hands to the table. "If I do this, with you and… Taigan, fine, Taigan, then the rest of my people–"
"They can stay here," Lilia said quickly, "if nothing else. We can do that now. It's as safe as we can make them for the duration. Clearly someone has been through here already. Let's hope they won't be back for a while."
She recreated the diagram of Tira's Temple again, this time in the sooty layer of the kitchen table. "Here's how we do it. We get our people into this fifth temple before Kirana, we control it, we hold it. Here's what I'd be doing in precisely this moment, if I were Kirana. I'd be getting my jistas, five for every temple, into these other four temples. Immediately. And working to get into the fifth temple by any means necessary."
Taigan laughed and slapped his knee. "Fifth temple? It's teeming with jistas. Likely the Empress herself has given them a visit and pissed all over it to mark it hers."
"Give me a minute," Lilia said.
Roh approached them, Anavha behind. Anavha was more composed now, but only just. Roh said, "We don't need to go through there to get to the fifth temple, remember? Oma's Temple can take us."
All gazes turned to him.
"Because you are the Guide," Lilia said. "All right, let's consider that. We just need to get you to Oma's Temple."
"As if that is easier!" Taigan said.
"With the Worldbreaker and the Key," Roh said. "Lilia, I know you said you could figure out the mechanism, you could play the role of worldbreaker, but… Li, I just think–"
"What are you talking about?" Maralah said. "A Key?"
Roh said, "The Key is… it's what channels all the combined power from all of the temples, and… I assume the Key is the person who can filter all that, so a worldbreaker can use it. We just need someone very powerful who can withstand that."
Lilia glanced over at Zezili, who sat on the rail outside, licking a tuber and wincing. "I thought it might be Zezili, she has this… this symbol? A missing piece that a woman named Kalinda gave me. She said it would help us in the fifth temple. I don't know. Maybe Zezili could endure all that power. We can find out?"
Luna came forward tentatively, slipping hir slight form between Taigan and Maralah. "The symbol?" Luna asked. "Is it a trefoil with a tail?"
"Yes," Lilia said.
Luna traced the symbol over the center of the diagram, where the Worldbreaker would operate. "I would put her here. You may not want her to work the device, but that thing inside of her, you will want that here. Both of you need to be there, for it to work. There's nothing in the book about a missing piece, but if there is one, it would sit there."
Lilia sketched out a drawing of the orrery she had seen in Tira's Temple. "This is the device, I think," she said. "Tira's Temple… showed it to me. Have you seen anything like this in the book? Anything about an orrery?"
Anavha leaned over the drawing. Frowned.
"Nothing about an orrery," Luna said, rubbing at hir forehead. "I didn't see any device like this in any of the drawings, but… the instructions for closing the ways, they are mathematical equations that could easily be applied to the heavens. Oh, yes, I can see this now."
"That looks like the game of spheres," Anavha said, in Dorinah, though he certainly hadn't been able to follow any of their other conversation.
"You've seen this before?" Lilia asked, in Dorinah.
"Something like it, yes. All different colors of orbs, though. It's a game, a tavern game here. You have to match all of the orbs so they are correct pairs. Knowing the correct pairs is difficult because it isn't by size or shape, but distance. There's math involved, a lot of strategy."
"I want to know more about this game," Lilia said. "Can you set it up here?"
"It's better to go to one," Anavha said. "Then maybe you can see if it's really like what you saw."
Lilia translated for the others.
Maralah dug into the bag of tubers. Taigan tried to pull it back. She snarled at him.
"The Key is more difficult," Luna continued. "For a long time, I assumed it was the Kai."
"Tira's Temple said it wasn't," Lilia offered.
"Right," Luna said. "Instead, it's someone who can channel all that power into operating the orrery. Yes, all the jistas at every temple are channeling power, but the one here, in the fifth, has to take in all that power and feed it back to the temple to power that… machine. That must be what it looks like, an orrery. It's… a lot of power. Enough to destroy pretty much anyone. These are organic machines, with the people acting as parts. It makes sense that the Key is a person, an organic part."
"Maralah, do you think–" Lilia began, and stopped. Her gaze settled on Taigan instead, who was gnawing on a tuber while making faces at Maralah. He noticed her looking, and grimaced.
"Oh no," Taigan said. "Don't even say it."
"There's only one person here who wouldn't have died back there," Lilia said. "You admitted it yourself. Who else could get torn apart by the power of every satellite and not die?"
"You need an omajista! I will be the useful omajista. Blow someone else up."
"Our omajista is Anavha," she said. "You're the Key, Taigan."
"I so look forward to more pain and discomfort," he said.
"You wanted to help," Lilia said. "Isn't that why you came back? This is how you can help."
"Killing, helping, as long as they're the same," he said.
"I'll talk to Anavha," Lilia said; at his name, he perked up, but she didn't want to share her theory with him, not yet, so she continued in Dhai. "I think others should learn too, though, in case something goes wrong. Luna? You seem to know more about what these can do than anyone."
"Me?" Luna said. "I… suppose I could, but… I don't want to stand up there."
"Maybe you won't have to," Lilia said. "I just don't like the idea of any of us being singular. We only have once chance at this."
"There's still the matter of getting into Oma's Temple," Roh said. "We can't just open a gate in there. The jistas will sense us and be on us immediately. Anavha and I barely got out when he opened a gate. It's like they have some kind of alarm that senses when power is used."
Anavha, frustrated at being excluded, asked for a translation. Roh provided one.
"I have several contacts there," Lilia said. "One in particular is very high up. Is Caisa here?"
"Who?" Roh asked.
"Never mind," Lilia said. "I still need to see who made it from Meyna's camp."
"There's also Saronia. Do you remember her?" Roh asked.
Lilia grimaced. She did. "That bully?"
"She does the laundry," Roh said. "Carts it in and out of the temple, across the bridge, from the plateau. We could come in through the cart."
Maralah shook her head. "It's too many people. A bare minimum of seven must go down, and you will want others, as you said, in case something happens to any single person. I would not attempt this with fewer than twenty. You can't get them all in through the fucking laundry."
"We could have Anavha open a gate at the base of the plateau," Lilia said, wiping away the diagram of Tira's Temple and drawing a map of the plateau and the spur of rock that held Oma's Temple. "Maralah, you could set the plateau on fire, at night to draw their attention. That's a good distraction. The darkness will help confuse them."
Roh pointed at the temple. "We need to get to the Assembly Chamber," he said. "That's where the temple told me to bring the Key and the Worldbreaker. The ceiling of that chamber is glass."
"Right," Lilia said.
"Para is ascendant," Roh said. "When you've drawn their attention to the plateau, a lot of other jistas will be pulling on their stars to put that fire out. Kadaan and I can get Anavha in on a wave of air, break in through the glass and make sure the area is secure. When it's clear, Anavha can open a gate and get in the rest of you. That will be much faster."
"Why can't Anavha just open a gate inside the Assembly Chamber?" Maralah said, rubbing her head. "This is overly complicated."
"We have no idea who will be in that chamber," Lilia said. "Kirana might have dozens of jistas in there. If Anavha opens a gate directly in that chamber, they will immediately sense his power and send everyone running up there before Roh and Kadaan can secure it, and we'll be through. Even with Roh and Kadaan coming in first, I still think we will need a bigger distraction than burning the plateau if we really want to make sure the Assembly Chamber is empty. If we can get those guards and jistas below, we can cut them off from their stars."
"I can cut them off," Taigan said. "A Song of Unmaking. After that little lark on the beach, I can say for a fact that I can cut off fifty-nine jistas at a time, at least. I'm very good at distractions."
"And how do you propose to get in?" Lilia said. "We are all very… obvious."
"I propose that I walk right in and offer that Empress something she would like very much indeed. That will get her and her jistas and guards out of that Assembly Chamber, and anyone else."
"What could you possibly offer that they'd want badly enough to swarm you for?" Roh said.
"I would give her Lilia Sona, the upstart kitchen girl leading the rebels."
"No," Lilia said. "They would cut you off from Oma the moment you walked in. And murder me, certainly."
"They would try. I've discovered that your people and hers are bad at the Song of Unmaking, at least when it comes to unmaking me."
"It's a very big risk," Lilia said. She chewed her thumbnail. "Maybe we won't do it at all. Maybe we should just risk–"
"Oh, how touching," Taigan said. "I would be fine. I'm always fine."
Roh said, "Taigan, do you really think you could get into the temple with Lilia, cut everyone off from their stars, and get yourself upstairs to the Assembly Chamber after?"
"I'd tell her Lilia knows how to work the machine," Taigan said, "that she is the Worldbreaker, and she needs to take us upstairs. You'd have the room secured by then, surely."
"What if I didn't know how?" Lilia asked.
"Especially if you didn't," Taigan said. He leaned toward her. "You know what that angry murderer is doing right now, with the moments that Para is in the sky ticking away? She is throwing jistas into those machines, all four of them, and frantically trying to murder that fifth temple. Her moments are numbered. She knows it. If you and I come in the front of the temple, she will meet us, and I will get us to the Assembly Chamber. I relish the challenge."
"You're very confident," Lilia said.
"I'm always confident," Taigan said.
Maralah said something to him in Saiduan. He snapped back at her. The air tensed for a moment, and Lilia waved her hands at them. "Let's not!" Lilia said. "We need to mobilize very, very quickly. Are we all aligned with this plan? If we do this, it must happen tonight."
"It still needs some refining," Kadaan said, from beside Roh. "Too much relies on… I'm sorry, Taigan, but we all know how you are. And we know very little about how many people are in this temple. She could have that chamber warded, and if so, there's no way we could enter, by wink or anything else."
"I agree this is mad," Maralah said, "but Lilia is right. We lose our window when Para winks out. But it's a good reminder that we need two of everyone. There's too much that could go wrong. You best go find out about this game of spheres, and make sure two of you know it! I'm going to get us a few more jistas. We still need a tirajista."
"I think I have one," Lilia said. If Salifa had lived. If any of the jistas from her camp had lived.
"And another in reserve," Taigan said. "This isn't your first turn with an impossible attack, bird. And we know how those turn out."
Heat rose in her face, but she said nothing, and Taigan did not continue.
"All right," Maralah said. "I need to go make sure these can eat. Kadaan, let's see if we can get ourselves some of those sheep."
The room cleared. Taigan lingered, munching on his tuber. Lilia stared at her messy drawings in the soot. Her dirty fingers.
"You have failed at how many assaults now, bird?" he said brightly.
"Go soak your head, Taigan."
"Let's count them," he said, and held out a finger. "There was the harbor, of course. Where you lost the wall and burned yourself out, despite my admonitions." He held out a second finger. "There was Kuallina. Ah, Kuallina! What a delightfully absurd mess that was, on all levels, when you lost your little Gian and–"
"Shut up, Taigan."
He held out a third finger. "And of course, you lost your little regiment of rebels in the woods. To a dead man, no less! That is still something extraordinary, let me say. This plan is overly complicated and you know it. You're relying on too much good luck, and we all know your history of luck."
Lilia pounded the table with her fist. "Enough!"
"Oh my," Taigan said, pressing a hand to his chest. "Did I strike a nerve? Was it the dead man? Or Gian?"
"I know what I'm doing this time."
"You know what you're doing even less this time. You know why you keep failing?"
"You aren't very successful yourself."
"It's because you are so driven by your own desires. Finding your mother, first." He rolled his eyes. "A fool's chase that was. She never wanted you to find her, and for good reason. And when she was dead, what was it then? It was getting revenge on the Tai Mora, certainly, but we both know it's Kirana you really want. To hurt her as you have been hurt. To destroy her as you've been destroyed."
Lilia seethed. "Why are you here, if I'm such a self-destructive failure?"
He shrugged. "What else do I have to do?"
"You could go annoy someone else. Destroy someone else's life."
"Me? I did not destroy your life." He rose and popped the last of the tuber into his mouth. Wiped his hands on his tunic. "Never forget, bird," he said, "you chose to come with me. You chose to sit at the table with Kirana and your little girlfriend, oh yes, I heard about that. You chose to keep antagonizing the Tai Mora forces, instead of retreating a year ago. No one made those choices for you."
He sauntered back out the door, leaving her in the charred kitchen, alone, with the smell of burnt hair and bits of crumbling sod falling from the ceiling. She dropped her head to her chest, and her eyes filled with tears. She was so tired.
"Hey, what you doing? You still in there?" Zezili called from the door.
Lilia wiped at her face. "I just need a few minutes."
"The sky isn't waiting on any of us," Zezili said.
"Get out!" Lilia yelled.
Zezili grinned. "Look at you! All right, all right. But I can't go far so hurry the fuck up." She went back outside.
From the kitchen window, Lilia watched Zezili alight on top of the fence that held in three or four dogs, easy as breathing. Saradyn shuffled past the fence, yelling something at Zezili. He raised his head and peered inside. When he spotted Lilia he made a sign at her, something obscene or profane, and yelled, "Impostor!" in Dorinah.
Lilia grimaced and moved away from the window. She hated Zezili in that moment. Hated her easy confidence and health, her seeming detachment from everything around them. She had died once, hadn't she? She had nothing to fear from death. But Lilia feared everything. Because Taigan was right. She had done nothing but fail from the very beginning. Failed her mother. Failed at the harbor. Failed Ahkio and Yisaoh, failed Meyna. Failed the refugees from Dorinah.
This time, she always vowed, every time, this time it will be different.
But she knew, knew it in her bones, that as long as she kept making the same choices, nothing would change at all.
|
(Worldbreaker Saga 3) The Broken Heavens
|
Kameron Hurley
|
[
"fantasy",
"LGBT",
"science fiction fantasy"
] |
[] |
Chapter 35
|
Ahkio had waited years to see his sister again.
Beside him, as they waited for their audience with the Empress of the Tai Mora, Caisa was wringing her hands, her eyes questioning his decision for the thousandth time, but she was loyal, so loyal, and he didn't feel he deserved it.
He did not deserve it.
But here he was.
He hadn't told Liaro what he hoped to do. Liaro only wanted to live. Liaro didn't understand Ahkio's sister.
An omajista led Ahkio upstairs. "What about Caisa?" he asked.
"She'll wait," the omajista said. "We've confirmed your prisoner is who you said she is. You can join her upstairs and wait with the Empress, but this one stays with us, for now."
Some of the color drained from Caisa's face.
"I really insist–" Ahkio said.
"Move," the omajista said, and pushed him. Ahkio gazed back at Caisa. His stomach churned. Caisa began to weep.
Had he made a mistake?
The omajista sat him down in the Assembly Chamber to wait. Everything in the chamber was different. Piles of books and papers, and jistas, so many jistas, and Dhai slaves and running feet. He had not seen the temple so bustling in his entire lifetime. Kirana had done this. She had always been a better leader. Yisaoh sat at the other end of the table, her steely gaze fixed on him, hands bound, two Tai Mora guards beside her, and a sinajista, though by all accounts Yisaoh was ungifted. She simply inspired caution in people. He knew that better than anyone.
"Fucking traitor," she muttered.
Kirana entered the Assembly Chamber from the stairs, which he had not expected. He stood. She came up the steps and regarded him, and he didn't know what to think of her. This woman, this warmonger, this mass murderer, was not the sister he knew, though she shared her face.
Her gaze did not seek his, though. She crossed the room to Yisaoh. As Kirana moved, he tried to see something in her that he remembered. He sought some shadow of his sister there, in her face, her walk. But this Kirana's walk was bolder. Her eyes flat and black: no mirth, no kindness. She had the gaze of a predator.
Kirana took hold of Yisaoh's chin. Yisaoh spat at her. Kirana laughed and stroked Yisaoh's cheek. Released her. "She is a good likeness," Kirana said, rounding on him. "How do I know this isn't some lookalike? We all thought you dead, Ahkio. I caught them fishing your fucking body parts out of the sewer dregs."
Ahkio shivered. "I have no memory of that."
"I bet," she said. "Sina is risen, and Para and Tira now too, so I suppose miracles are possible. But so is treachery."
"I've brought you who you wanted."
"I admit I wasn't certain you would come," Kirana said, "after all this time." She gestured at the soldiers beside Yisaoh, and they advanced and took hold of Yisaoh and dragged her back down the stairs. Yisaoh tried to bite Kirana as she passed, but Kirana paid her no mind. "You promised me Yisaoh at Kuallina, and never delivered her."
"You tyrant!" Yisaoh yelled. "And you, Ahkio, you Sina-cursed traitor! Sina will burn you for this. Oma will crush your bones!" She continued shouting as they took her down the hall.
"I have no memory of that either," Ahkio said, turning back to Kirana. "But I've heard that, yes."
"If you are truly the same Ahkio, I wonder why it is you brought her here now, finally. Did it take you this long to consider my proposition?"
"I've been changed," he said. "I have heard people say it. I'm not the same man. Maybe that is true. Maybe I'm some construct. But I've been shaped by what's happened since then. I want peace, Kirana. And the sister I knew would keep her word when it came to peace. I don't know how much of that Kirana is within you, but it's my dearest hope that this war is over. We can work together to build something better. We don't need to be enemies any longer."
"I can't believe you would forgive what's been done," Kirana said. "I wouldn't."
"We are very different," he said. "I see what continuing down this road will do to us. To you, and to me, and the people I still lead. We simply want you to release the people you have here, and let us all go. You never have to see any of us again."
"We need the slaves here," Kirana said, "for another season yet."
"Then let us work as equals, not slaves."
"And murder us all in our beds? No. I am not a fool, Ahkio. Not like you. Tell me, what were you all doing out there, trying to run away?"
"To build a new life, yes. Catori Meyna and I were working with the Saiduan to find peace. I wanted to ensure they would be safe on those boats before I came to you, but… then you arrived. What I want to know is how you got word we would be there."
"Magic," Kirana said. "I'm sure you can appreciate that."
"I want to stop all of this," he said. "It's gone on too long and I can't watch any more of my people die. I can be the person who holds out their hand to you. All you have to do is take it."
Ahkio held out his hand. It trembled, just a bit, and he worked hard to still it.
Kirana stared at his proffered hand. "I don't remember peace," she said. "The world was dying from the time I was born. I knew what had to be done."
"I understand," Ahkio said.
"Do you?" she said. "No, you couldn't. You don't know what it is to have a world dying around you, and your family trapped on the other side. You don't know what it is to have to become everything you despise to save your people. You don't know–"
"On the contrary," Ahkio said. "I know very well what it is to compromise one's principles. I know about difficult choices. I am here, Kirana. I've betrayed my own people to give you want you want. I've sacrificed one of my own so you can save your wife, your Yisaoh. And in return, a family has lost a daughter, a sister, a lover, here. Take my hand, Kirana. Please. Let's end this."
|
(Worldbreaker Saga 3) The Broken Heavens
|
Kameron Hurley
|
[
"fantasy",
"LGBT",
"science fiction fantasy"
] |
[] |
Chapter 36
|
Kirana saw his hand shaking, and she knew it was with fear. In that moment, she admired him: this simple, naive young man who was clearly much braver than her own brother had been. She stared at his burned hands, wondering what he had done to them on this world, in his time. She was caught, again, in that terrible limbo between this reality and the other, one world and the next.
"Let me tell you about my brother," Kirana said, and he lowered his hand a fraction. "You know what I did to my brother? I used him as a pawn. I sacrificed him in front of your birth mother, Nasaka, so she could see how serious I was in my intentions. My own mother does not know that. Nor does our Nasaka, because of course, I had to kill her very early in the conflict. She was scheming and far too powerful, just like yours."
Ahkio pulled his hand away. "I suspected you had something very awful over her."
"Oh, she wanted power," Kirana said. "Make no mistake. But she did try to protect you, and that's more than I've done, on my world or this one. There was no path to peace, here, for your people and mine. Only the end of your people. Always."
"There is time to change your mind," he said. "While we are alive, there is always time, Kirana."
Kirana felt a tug toward him. Ahkio had always been so naive, but his naivety was honestly touching. She took a step forward and gently took his hand.
His palms were soft, just like her Ahkio, but unlike her true brother, he bore terrible scars on the fingers, knuckles, his wrists – every part of his hands that had been exposed as he tried to drag his mother from a burning building. There would have been no way to save her brother, to bring him here and pretend he was another, because it was impossible to replicate those scars. She knew. She had tried, with several of her captives, to see if they could do it correctly.
Kirana drew him into an embrace, and she held her brother, this version of her brother, tightly against her. He was taller and thinner than her. She pressed her face to his shoulder and took in the scent of him; that, too, was the same. He was very beautiful, in this world and the next, in all of them.
"I'm sorry," she said.
He did not ask for what. There were legions of things she could be sorry about. But she was sorriest for what she was apologizing for now.
Kirana drew away from him. She kissed his forehead and pushed his hair back from his eyes. What he saw in her gaze, she did not know. She hoped he saw grief, remorse.
"I'm sorry," she said again. She slipped the utility knife from the sheath at her side and jabbed it neatly into his neck, piercing the carotid artery.
His eyes bulged. She grabbed at the wound, reflexively trying to stopper the gout of blood. It usually took a few minutes to bleed out, but he was thin, weak, starving, and his knees buckled and he collapsed in her arms in less than a minute, eyes still wide, lips moving, but making no sound.
Kirana gently pulled him to the ground, staying with him until his gaping ceased and the hopeful flicker in his eyes went out.
She still stood there when Yivsa came back up the stairs and paused in the door. The others, too, had ceased their work to stare at her. One of the Dhai servants was crying softly. The others were very still, perhaps shocked. Many had known her brother.
"There is nothing I will not do," she said, raising her voice for them all to hear, "to ensure our survival here. Don't ever doubt that."
She wiped her bloody palms on Ahkio's body and stood. "Yivsa?"
Yivsa cleared her throat and came forward. "It's done," she said.
"I need to see the body."
"I thought–"
"I have to see it."
Yivsa led her to one of the small libraries on the floor below. Yisaoh's body lay inert on the floor, throat still tangled with a garroting wire. Her eyes bulged, staring blankly. Her tongue lolled, just touching the stone floor.
Kirana got down on one knee beside her and checked her pulse, to be sure. She had no more times for mistakes. There were any number of people she could kill, whole worlds, but this killing she had known she could not do herself. Killing Tasia, even, a child not of her own womb, but of her heart, had been easier than Yisaoh, who was her heart.
"Where's Oravan?"
"Below, working to power the engines. All the omajistas are engaged."
"Well, I need to unengage him. Come with me." She pointed at one of the soldiers preparing to move Yisaoh's body. "There's another upstairs," Kirana said. "I want them both prepared properly."
She and Yivsa hurried down the stairs, down and down. Kirana's heart thumped loudly in her chest. She tried to keep her breathing even. She was so close. So very close. As she came down into the foyer, she realized she didn't even care if they could power these blasted temples or not. With Yisaoh, her Yisaoh, by her side, she could keep fighting them for two more decades. She would find the strength.
They passed through the basements and into the great cavern with the fibrous tree roots. The moment she stepped down into the room, the air shifted. Became dense as milk. She took a deep breath and forged on. Muted sounds came from the engine chamber below: the voices of her jistas and stargazers.
Kirana went down the ladder, Yivsa just behind her, and had to shield her eyes from the light. The four pedestals around the central one each held a jista captured in a massive beam of light the same color as the satellite they channeled. The central pillar glowed green, and four of her stargazers and two more jistas conferred over it.
Oravan saw Kirana and rushed over to her.
"What happened?" Kirana asked.
"As soon as they stepped in, it…" Oravan gestured. "It won't let them go."
"Well, I hope they're hydrated," Kirana said. "Have Gian's people seen this?"
"I'm afraid so," Oravan said. "She sent observers to each temple."
Kirana waved a hand. "What have you tried to get them out?"
"Everything. It burns anyone who tries. Masis had the flesh burned off his whole right hand."
"Well, he doesn't need a hand to chart the stars," Kirana said. "The central pillar?"
"I… Suari would have been the best–"
"Suari isn't here."
"Perhaps one of Gian's–"
"You don't want to do it?"
Oravan winced.
"It's fine," Kirana said. "I need a wink to Yisaoh and our people there. We're bringing them all home. There are another half dozen jistas there you can throw into the machine."
"What's a good staging area?" Oravan asked. "I recommend the Sanctuary."
They walked back up to the main floor together and gathered in the Sanctuary. Yivsa closed the doors and guarded them.
"Open the wink," Kirana said.
The air between them parted.
On the other side, another omajista waited. Kirana confirmed the day's password with her and stepped through. Yivsa accompanied her, and told the omajista they were conducting the final retreat. The toxic air smelled of sulfur, and made her cough.
Kirana found Yisaoh in the great hold kitchen, regaling two sinajistas and a fighter with a story of how she had once broken another soldier's skull after a particularly gruesome battle in the early days, before she and Kirana were married, before Kirana deemed it far too dangerous for Yisaoh to continue soldiering, especially under Kirana's command. Too many understood that Yisaoh was Kirana's weakness; Yisaoh could be used against her.
"What's the news?" Yisaoh asked as Kirana came in.
Kirana grinned. She could not help it. "You're coming home with me today," she said. "We're all going home."
Yisaoh clapped her hands and spread wide her arms. They embraced. "All of us?" Yisaoh said.
"All of us," Kirana said. "Let's go see the children."
They walked hand in hand back to the open wink. Kirana gave orders for the others to follow. She gave one last look back at the old, dying world, and squeezed Yisaoh's hand.
Yisaoh did not look back, and it was one reason Kirana loved her so.
Kirana held her breath and stepped through, holding tightly to her Yisaoh. She would not be separated again.
And then they were through the wink and standing on the other side back in the Sanctuary, both whole.
"I told you," Kirana said. "I told you. I promised."
"You did," Yisaoh said. "You did." She began to tremble, as if cold or frightened. Kirana rubbed her wife's arms.
"Food, tea, and a bath," Kirana said softly. "That will cure anything."
Kirana wanted to leap and shout and show her around the temple, but she saw the shock and exhaustion on Yisaoh's face. She needed rest. The other soldiers began to come through, all the jistas and fighters Kirana had left to guard Yisaoh. Even in her rush of pleasure at having Yisaoh at her side, she could not help but also be grateful to see her forces surge again. She needed those jistas for the work ahead.
After baths and food and being reunited with the children, Kirana took them all up to the big bedroom behind the Assembly Chamber and drew the curtains. They all piled into bed, the whole family reunited at last.
"I can't believe we're all here," Yisaoh said. Tasia lay her head onto Yisaoh's stomach, and was asleep almost immediately. Corina and Moira curled up with one another at the center of the bed. Corina's fingers were tangled in Yisaoh's hair.
Kirana lay next to Yisaoh and stared at her face, absently stroking her forehead. "I'm sorry it took so long," she said.
Yisaoh knit her brows. "Did you… was it you who…?"
"No," Kirana said. And that was why she had not done it, because she knew Yisaoh would ask, and she would not be able to lie to her. "But it's done."
Yisaoh's eyes filled. Her eyelids fluttered, and the tears wet her face like dew.
"Hush," Kirana said. "We're safe now. All of us. Every one. They can never separate us again."
Through the seam of the curtains, the light of the pulsing satellites danced across the floor.
|
(Worldbreaker Saga 3) The Broken Heavens
|
Kameron Hurley
|
[
"fantasy",
"LGBT",
"science fiction fantasy"
] |
[] |
Chapter 37
|
Aaldia was a country of games. Anavha knew that well, but he had not expected this particular game to play such an important part in the end of the world. As the dusk settled, he walked out the back porch and had the other jistas form a circle. The night was cool, lit by the spinning satellites and triad of moons.
Anavha raised his arms and carefully spun up the twinkling illusion that was the game of sphere. Hundreds of orbs twinkled to life in front of them. A whirling collection of spinning spheres formed in a myriad of colors. The smallest was no larger than his thumbnail, the largest as big as his head.
"We move to the center," Anavha said, gesturing for Lilia and Luna.
Both gaped at the game. Lilia recovered first and said. "You… They just have this map, the same one each time?"
"Not always the same," Anavha said. "There are different end states."
The three of them moved to the center of the spinning orbs, which moved lazily along their elliptical orbits.
"Did it look like this?" Anavha asked. "What you saw in the temple?"
"Something like this," Lilia said. "What's the purpose of the game?"
"Each projected sphere is called a door," Anavha said. "Now you will see a second set of pieces come up." He gestured, and a sparkling net of additional spheres joined the first. Two hundred different pieces then, total. "These are the board pieces," he said. "The goal is to match the doors and the pieces."
"But…" Luna said. "There's… I'm not seeing a difference between the board pieces and the door pieces."
"This is the math part," Anavha said. "It has to do with geometry, and where they sit on the board."
Lilia followed a series of spheres along their path. "A three-dimensional game board, then?"
"Exactly," Anavha said.
"How many ways are there to play?" she asked.
"What do you mean?"
"The doors and pieces… I have an idea of what the end game for that would be. Pairing like and like. Other worlds and their people, maybe. But what else? How else do you win?"
Anavha considered that. "Well, there are other ways to play it, but they aren't very sporting."
"Teach me those ways," Lilia said.
Anavha said, "I'm not sure–"
"Teach me," Lilia said. "Luna, are you taking notes?"
"I… yes? This is just very similar to something I know."
"What?" Lilia asked.
Luna shook her head. "I'll tell you later."
"Then let's begin."
Anavha made a sweeping motion with his left arm, and all the board pieces furled toward him and collected in a great sphere above his head. He moved his right arm in the opposite direction, and the door pieces joined them, all whirling together in the massive sphere.
"What was that?" Lilia asked. "What you just did?"
"Oh, that was nothing," Anavha said. "That just resets the game."
The twinkling spheres blinked back into their orbits.
It was a beautiful little game. Anavha loved it.
Three hours later, her mind spinning with glowing orbs and violet light, Lilia announced that she was done, and they could delay no longer. She had lost the game sixteen out of eighteen times. Namia had fallen asleep on the porch behind her.
"We don't have time to go again," Lilia said, gazing at the moons as they began their descent.
Luna shivered. The winking orrery went out.
Saradyn and Roh still sat outside with them on the soft grass; Saradyn snoring like a great bear, Roh nodding in and out of sleep.
Lilia wished for sleep, but knew she didn't have time for it. Two days, Luna had said, maybe a bit more, maybe a bit less. How far had Kirana gotten already? Had she gotten into the fifth temple? Convinced the keepers to make one of her jistas a guide and worldbreaker? All she had to go on was this game and its various outcomes. Pull in the spheres, remake them, reshape them, put pieces back into the worlds they belonged. There had only been two hundred pieces here, though, and her memory of the orrery was that there were far more. And if they represented worlds, all these many versions of the worlds all colliding together… there could very well be millions. Trillions. She did not say that out loud, but it made her head ache: a pulsing pain behind her left eye.
Anavha yawned. She didn't want to pause their plan for sleep, but realized it would be safer if he, at least, did so before opening a gate. Too much relied on the gates.
Meyna had bedded down all of the Dhai in the surrounding fields, and a few scouts with flame fly lanterns kept watch on the hills around the farm. The Saiduan had claimed the barn, since there were fewer of them.
But a few other Dhai were still up, and one came over to Lilia, catching her before she went inside.
"Li?" Salifa said.
"Ah!" Lilia said. "You're alive! I'm sorry. It's been–"
"I know," Salifa said. "I wanted to say I was sorry I didn't go with you."
"It was my fault," Lilia said. "I was embarrassed to tell you all that I burned out. And the rest, well… Meyna does not like me, does not like the white ribbons–"
"I heard you need a jista."
"I do," Lilia said.
Salifa touched the ribbon at her throat. "Avosta won't speak to you. He says he hates you now. Harina never came back, and Mihina–"
"Salifa, I'm not asking you to go with us. Death is–"
"I know," Salifa said. "What I'm telling you is, they all died to get us here. It's foolish for me not to help now, here at the end."
Tears wet Lilia's cheeks. She wiped at them.
Namia yawned on the porch, rolled over, and came over to her, crooning to comfort her.
"It's all right," Lilia said. "Thank you, Salifa. Two hours? Come inside and I'll have Maralah show you how this works."
Lilia walked in and introduced Salifa to Maralah. "A tirajista," Lilia said. "Could you show her?"
"You show her," Maralah said, turning her back on Lilia.
Lilia sighed and went over the diagram with Salifa. "When we are in, this is where you will be. Me and Zezili, here. Taigan, that annoying sanisi, here. Maralah here. Anavha. And Kadaan, the Saiduan man, there."
Salifa nodded. "If we don't survive this," she said, "I hope Sina takes our souls and does something very useful with them."
"Me too," Lilia said.
A scuffle from the hall caught her attention. Anavha leaned against the doorframe leading back to the bedrooms. "I'm afraid," he said.
Lilia went back outside and woke Roh and Saradyn. "Roh, can you and Saradyn sleep in the room with Anavha?" Lilia asked. "There are six good rooms here, and three beds."
When she went back into the house, she found Taigan already asleep in one of the back bedrooms, breathing contentedly, as if he didn't have a care in the world. Lilia noted that he slept with his boots on though.
She entered his room. His eyes snapped open.
"Two hours," Lilia said.
He grunted and rolled over.
When she returned, Salifa had gone, and Maralah stood over the kitchen table with Kadaan. They had wiped away the old diagrams and sketched out new ones. Roh skipped over to them on a little puff of Para's breath. Said something to them in Saiduan. Lilia could not help smiling at seeing him use his gift again.
"You have everything sorted?" Lilia asked.
"You have a tirajista?" Maralah countered.
"I can have Salifa," Lilia said.
"That's only one tirajista," Maralah said. "We need two."
"That's what we have," Lilia said. "Anavha helped me send word to my contact in the temple earlier. My contact will meet you inside, in the Assembly Chamber, when the moons set."
"That's in two hours," Maralah said.
"That's what I said. We're out of time," Lilia said. "Kirana is ahead of us."
Roh said, "We can trust your contact?"
"Yes. She's the one who's given me all the information I have from Oma's Temple so far."
"I'm worried about how fast this needs to happen," Roh said.
"We have one chance," Lilia said. "If we don't take it now, we lose it forever. Or at least for the length of our own lives."
"I think we should wait," Maralah said. "Roh is right. We are all tired. Tired people make mistakes."
"We have to get our people into that fifth temple before Kirana does," Lilia said. "If her people end up taking those places… I don't know that we'll be able to get them out."
"We know so little," Maralah muttered.
"It's more than Kirana knows," Lilia said.
"You can't guarantee that," Roh said.
"I'm willing to take this risk," Lilia said. "I'm going to walk in the front with Taigan to buy you some time. With Kirana sleeping in the Kai quarters, surrounded by jistas… she could murder you all coming out of the wink in that Assembly Chamber. We have to call her down below. A distraction that rouses the whole temple. A spectacle."
"We need sleep," Maralah said.
"Then sleep," Lilia said, turning away so she didn't have to see Maralah's face. "Two hours."
Roh came after her. "Li, listen."
"I need to sleep," Lilia said. She paused at the door of the room she was going to share with Namia and Zezili.
"Maralah made a good–"
"We go in two hours or we don't go," Lilia said. "Those are the choices."
"That's garbage, Li," he said. "There are more than two choices. It's not all good or evil, this or that. We have the power to find other choices. If I learned nothing else in Saiduan, it was that. I… You don't know what happened there. How I lived, and others… It was very bad. I thought I had two choices, always, but there were more than that, always. And I… made mistakes. Don't make those mistakes."
"I'm not going to make any more mistakes," Lilia said, and closed the door.
|
(Worldbreaker Saga 3) The Broken Heavens
|
Kameron Hurley
|
[
"fantasy",
"LGBT",
"science fiction fantasy"
] |
[] |
Chapter 38
|
Lilia woke with the light of the swirling satellites in her eyes, peeping in through the window of the bed she slept in. They had not winked out in the two hours she had tried to sleep.
It was Namia who woke her. "Going?" Namia signed.
"No," Lilia said. "You're staying here. I told you that." She heard Maralah, Roh and Kadaan already awake and conferring in the kitchen, in Saiduan. She hated it when they spoke Saiduan together because she knew so little of it.
Zezili lay beside her, not asleep but staring at the ceiling.
"Do you sleep at all?" Lilia asked.
"No," Zezili said. "I don't think so. I never feel tired. It was nice to just sit here for a minute, I guess."
Lilia went to the rear bedroom and woke up Taigan. "It's time."
"It's not even light."
"That's the point."
He grumbled, but got out of bed.
Lilia found Saradyn and Anavha asleep in another room, and got them up as well. She sent Namia out to round up the other jistas and fighters they needed. When Lilia saw Salifa with them, she dared to have a little hope.
"Thank you," Lilia said.
Salifa inclined her head. "It's an honor, Li."
Lilia counted them all up, and Maralah confirmed it.
"Are you worried what Meyna will do when you're gone?" Roh asked. "That maybe she will… I don't know."
"I don't care," Lilia said. "It's always been about this, about striking back. Either we come back victorious, or we die trying. Either way, what comes after is up to Meyna, not me. I want no part in it."
Roh raised his brows, but said nothing.
"Anavha?" Lilia said. "You take Maralah first. Roh and Kadaan next." She doubted he could do two gates at once, and she wanted to keep things simple.
Anavha took a deep breath. Closed his eyes.
The gate wavered just outside, through the open back door.
Maralah muttered something in Saiduan. Taigan laughed.
"One last great adventure," Taigan said, in Dhai.
Lilia thought she should give some speech, something beautiful and a little melancholy, but she was too tired. Whatever was going to happen was going to happen. She had to keep moving forward.
Maralah stepped through the gate and onto the plateau, and set the world on fire.
|
(Worldbreaker Saga 3) The Broken Heavens
|
Kameron Hurley
|
[
"fantasy",
"LGBT",
"science fiction fantasy"
] |
[] |
Chapter 39
|
Roh stood in the woodland behind Oma's Temple, Kadaan at his side. Anavha shivered behind them, though he was wrapped in a large dog-hair coat. Saradyn had insisted on coming, though Roh could not think of anything in particular he could help them with. Intimidation, maybe. An extra fighting arm. Though Roh knew that if it came to close combat, they would have already failed. With only one chance, though, Lilia and Maralah had insisted on many redundancies.
"You didn't have to come," Roh said to Kadaan in Saiduan.
"You needed a parajista."
"We had a number of other parajistas," Roh said softly. They were waiting for the spread of Maralah's fire to wake up the temple and distract the Tai Mora. Lilia had wanted them to move immediately, but Maralah urged them to wait for the temple to light up. From here, the top of the temple appeared very far away.
Roh held out his hand. "After, I'd like–"
"Let's not talk about after," Kadaan said. "We go forward."
Roh watched the top of the temple again. Lights began to flicker in the long series of slanted windows that marked corridors and foyers. Flame-fly lanterns roused to wakefulness.
"Another few minutes," Kadaan said. "If we move too quickly, they'll still be close enough to reach us."
"Are you ready, Anavha?" Roh asked in Dorinah.
He nodded.
Kadaan was the more skilled parajista, so he pulled Para first, weaving an intricate web using the Song of Davaar and the Song of the Wind. Roh held out his hand for Anavha. Saradyn grimaced, but came forward, and Kadaan wrapped them all into the blue mist of Para's embrace.
Anavha closed his eyes and began to tremble. He wouldn't be able to see the threads of Para any more than Roh could see Anavha using Oma's.
Roh sent a second thread of Para's power across the vast distance, tying it off at the crenulation that marked the end edge of the glass over the Assembly Chamber.
Then they were flying, weightless, with alarming speed. Anavha held onto Roh. Saradyn gaped at the ground as it disappeared beneath them.
"Wonderful!" Saradyn yelled in Dorinah.
Roh kept his gaze on the temple, looking for defensive threads of Para's power. On the other side of the temple, over the plateau, a great bloom of blue mist crackled. Roh felt the wind it generated, and pulled Para to try to counteract it, but Kadaan hissed at him.
"Don't do that again," Kadaan said. "I have it."
They alighted on the slippery glass of the Assembly Chamber. As Kadaan released his spell, Roh called a focused tornado of air and smashed through the ceiling while also damping the sound of the crash of glass. It was eerily silent.
Kadaan swung down first, weaving a defensive wall spell as he leapt.
Saradyn went next, landing heavily on the table at the center of the room. Roh stuck his head further in, trying to see who was inside. Kadaan held the defensive wall in place; someone was yelling. Roh heard it through the defense.
"Stay here," Roh told Anavha. "I don't want to risk you."
"I don't want to be here alone," Anavha whispered.
"I'm right down here!" Roh said. He sent a whirl of Para's breath below him to break his fall, and landed softly on the table.
Kadaan held a shimmering defensive wall around the table, pressing back a single woman who was nearly crushed against the far wall. Roh thought it was supposed to be empty, though.
"Where are Lilia and Taigan?" Roh asked.
Saradyn pointed at the door to the chamber. Smoke swirled under it from the stairwell.
"What's burning?" Kadaan said.
|
(Worldbreaker Saga 3) The Broken Heavens
|
Kameron Hurley
|
[
"fantasy",
"LGBT",
"science fiction fantasy"
] |
[] |
Chapter 40
|
Taigan stepped through the gate and onto the plateau outside Oma's Temple. The garrison there was already on fire, a great billowing blaze that was quickly consuming the whole plateau, sending bits of charred grass into the sky that trickled onto the woodland below. More blazes would begin, burning out more of the Tai Mora. That pleased him.
"Remember," Lilia said, huffing behind him, "we need to be enough of a distraction to get that chamber clear. If Anavha's wink draws all the jistas here up there, and if Kirana is still there–"
"Oh, fear not," Taigan said. "My distraction will be much more… dramatic."
The fire had also drawn away the guards at the stone bridge leading to the temple. They were halfway to the garrison already.
Taigan strode ahead of Lilia and Zezili, straight for the bridge, already spinning a powerful song to surprise the guards on the other side. He went across the bridge without pausing for them to catch up, though Zezili keep harping at him in Dorinah.
Lilia wanted to distract these people, to cut them off from their stars and hobble them, to buy Anavha and Roh and the others time in the rooms above. But Taigan had other ideas. Hobbling was not enough. Not nearly enough.
The guards inside the temple reached immediately for their respective stars, and six more guards came in behind him from the gardens, shocked at his passing. Taigan cut the jistas off neatly from their stars and immobilized the regular guards with an easy binding song.
"I have a gift for your Empress," Taigan said as Zezili caught up to him.
"The fuck are you doing?" Zezili said in Dorinah.
He pretended not to understand her.
"She has gotten a good many gifts lately," the older jista said. "What makes yours special?"
"Do you want to risk angering her now, so close to the end?"
"You can wait in the gaol."
"We can wait where the guests wait," Taigan said. "Where is that?"
Lilia finally came through the doorway, breathing hard. She narrowed her eyes at Taigan.
"Guests wait here," the jista said.
Taigan flicked his wrist, and snapped every bone in her body. She fell to the floor like a broken puppet.
Lilia gasped. "Taigan!"
He set the rest of the guards on fire. They screamed.
Zezili grabbed his shoulder. "What–"
Taigan immobilized her in a neat net of Oma's breath, spinning a little prison around her to keep her out of his way. She hung just above the floor, spitting and yelling.
"What are you doing? This isn't the plan!" Lilia said.
Taigan shrugged. "These people murdered my entire country," he said. "I didn't think I was terribly upset about it until just this moment."
"But… what did you tell me about revenge? This is–"
"I am very bad at taking my own advice," he said, and burned up the next wave of soldiers and jistas coming down the stairs. He set everything on fire that would burn: the tables and chairs in the banquet hall. The doors. The drapes. The occasional wooden or otherwise organic panel. The carvings on the stairs. The portraits.
Lilia choked and gasped behind him, but he had come here to satisfy a very deep craving, and he was far from being sated.
He took the stairs two at a time, burning Tai Mora and Dhai without distinction. It simply did not matter to him. He paused on the third floor, far ahead of Lilia, and sent a tendril of Oma's breath back down to pick her up. She yelled.
Taigan set her down beside him.
"Murder me too," she gasped. "Just get it over with. Is that what you're here for?"
"Not at all," Taigan said, as the black smoke crept up the stairs. "But if we fail at this little venture, and bird, you have a divine history of failure, I want to ensure I murder as many of these people as I can before the end."
He kept climbing, sending fire down every corridor, extinguishing the lives of every breathing inhabitant his star's power could unearth. He marveled that there appeared to be no omajistas in the temple; without one, there were none who could counter him.
"Kirana was as rash as you!" Taigan called down to Lilia. She had paused halfway up the fourth flight of stairs, huffing for breath.
Ah. The smoke, of course. He considered leaving her. Certainly, she knew how to operate the device, but so did Luna. Taigan smirked at that. All this time, he had been searching for a worldbreaker, scouring one continent after another for the right person, for some chosen one, when it turned out all they'd had to do was train one. Oh, the irony. The years of wasted shit and toil.
"She must have all her omajistas engaged in the temple!" he yelled down again.
Could she hear him at all? Who knew? She was surely drowning, gasping for breath, her vision no doubt tunneling out. Oh well.
He turned away to go up the final stair to the Assembly Chamber. How long it had been since he stood there, trying to convince these foolish pacifists that this was all coming, that this was how it would all end.
"None of you listened!" he yelled at Lilia again, but he could not see her anymore. With everyone and everything burning around him, he had no audience to appreciate his work.
Taigan sent a purl of Oma's breath back for her, tapping along to the rhythm of the crackling flames as he waited for her arrival.
The body he brought up was limp, barely breathing, but alive. He focused his power on her bruised and battered lungs. He eased the smothering inflammation and repaired the oxygen-starved tissue. It was all just so much easier with Oma risen. He felt like the most powerful person in the world.
Lilia gasped and sat up. She clutched at her chest. Stared at Taigan.
"Just this way," he said brightly, holding out his hand.
"You're monstrous," she said.
"I never pretended to be anything else. We are a lovely group of monsters, Lilia, you and me and that construct you call Zezili. One has to be monstrous to do what we are about to do."
He released the tangle of Oma's breath that held Zezili immobile in the foyer, assuming that she had yet to die, or that his resurrection of Lilia had also affected her. A curious binding, that one.
Taigan was proven correct as he pushed open the door to the Assembly Chamber and Zezili came barreling up the stairs, yelling at him, hardly winded.
"Did you even look back?" Zezili shouted.
He waved at her. "Good of you to join us. So much confusion down there!"
"Fuck you, you fucking–"
He came up against the parajista barrier inside the door and called to Kadaan, "Would you let us pass? There's a great deal of burning down here." All of them appeared to be intact, inside: Anavha and Roh, Kadaan and Saradyn. A strange group of companions, no matter what the sky was doing.
"Thanks to you," Zezili said.
"You're welcome," Taigan said.
"Saradyn," Roh said. "Grab her and keep her quiet when we drop the barrier."
Saradyn lumbered to the other side of the room where a woman was pressed against the wall by the barrier.
Taigan had not anticipated her being there. He sighed. "Oh dear."
Lilia put a hand to her mouth, clearly recognizing Gian immediately.
The barrier dropped.
Lilia was exhausted, her chest still sore. She wanted to murder Taigan where he stood, but when she saw Gian on the other side of the room, she forgot it all for one brilliant moment.
She would know Gian's face anywhere. The woman who had taken her out to Fasia's Point on a vain quest to find Lilia's mother. And again, a different Gian but always the same Gian, in her memory: the Gian whose leg she had mended, whose hair she had brushed and braided, the Gian who loved her when she was no one, nothing, just a filthy, stinking scullery girl. Gian, the lovely face in the dark.
Gian, the one she had lost because of her own terrible choices.
Even as she was overcome, Saradyn picked Gian up and wrapped a big hand around her throat.
"Don't kill her!" Lilia cried. "Wait, just. Let me think." Her breath came quickly. "Let her be, just a moment, I–"
"Anavha!" Kadaan said. "It's time. Lilia! Get back here!"
Anavha raised his hands.
Smoke still poured in from the stairwell and escaped through the shattered hole in the ceiling.
Roh said, "Lilia, come in. I need to block that smoke."
Anavha's gate winked into existence. The others jumped through the wink above the table: Maralah first, then Luna, Salifa and the rest.
Salifa immediately ran up to Lilia, white ribbons streaming from her hair. "Are you all right? What's–"
"Go!" Lilia said, pointing back at the table. "Get in place. I can handle this."
Salifa winced and retreated.
Taigan chuckled. "She isn't even the right Gian, bird."
"Shut your face!" Lilia said. Her hands trembled. The memories tore over her. Gian's face as she gagged and fell over at the table they had shared while trying to parley with Kirana, so long ago, at Kuallina. The spray of black bile. Gian convulsing, another dead Gian. All dead.
"Not this one!" Lilia said firmly. "Not. One. More."
Taigan was right. This was another of her overly complicated plans. This wasn't going to work. She had put them all in danger. She was failing them, just like she had failed Gian. How many more would she sacrifice because she just wanted… to win? To be right?
Gian stared at her, wide-eyed. Lilia crept toward her, hesitant.
"You know me?" Lilia asked.
"I do," Gian said softly.
"Don't scream," Lilia said, "or this big man will harm you. I won't stop him."
Gian nodded again.
Lilia said to Saradyn, in Dorinah, "Release her, all right? Just loosen your grip so she can talk."
Roh called to the others, "Make a circle here around the table. Lilia! We need you and Saradyn! Let her be!"
"How do you know me?" Lilia asked.
"I know your face," Gian rasped, "as it seems you know mine. Some other you, though. She died."
"Most versions of me seem to," Lilia said. She remembered gasping in the foyer and blacking out, left to die for the millionth time by Taigan.
"And me?" Gian asked.
"You've died a lot too," Lilia said. "I'm very tired of watching you die."
Lilia turned back to the others, who had made a circle around the table.
"Let her go, Saradyn," Lilia said.
Saradyn grunted, said to Roh, "You say?"
"Lilia, she'll tell them–" Roh sputtered.
"They can't follow us," Lilia said. "They don't have a Guide or a Kai."
"Fine," Roh said. "Do as she says. Just… take that woman's sword. Lilia, hurry!"
Saradyn took Gian's sword and shoved her back against the wall, knocking the breath from her.
Lilia made her way to the circle, and stood between Salifa and Taigan.
"Hold hands!" Roh said.
Taigan smirked and took Lilia's hand on one side, Luna's on the other. "Are we going to sing religious songs now?"
"All right," Roh said. "Everyone step onto the ring into the floor, on my mark. Now." Roh stepped onto the circle of temple flesh in the floor. The others followed. Lilia felt the warmth of the temple's beating heart beneath her feet.
Nothing happened.
For a long moment no one said anything.
"Well," Taigan said, "I'm glad I murdered as many of them as possible. This was certainly an excit–"
They fell through the floor.
|
(Worldbreaker Saga 3) The Broken Heavens
|
Kameron Hurley
|
[
"fantasy",
"LGBT",
"science fiction fantasy"
] |
[] |
Chapter 41
|
A banging on the door. Kirana shifted in her sleep, pushing away sticky dreams. Shouting. She roused herself and sat bolt upright. Threw off her coverlet. Why did she feel so woozy? Her head ached. Was that the smell of smoke?
Yisaoh wiped at her eyes. "What is it?"
"I don't know."
The door opened.
Kirana let loose her infused weapon. It snapped out of her wrist. She pushed herself up. The flame fly lanterns came alive at all the movement and noise.
Gian stood in the door, panting, one hand pressed against her chest as if she'd been knocked about. "A bunch of Dhai came up here," she said. "They just came in through the ceiling in the Assembly Chamber and dropped through the floor."
"And… you're alive?"
"There's… a girl with them. I… knew her, in some other life. She was weak. That's our one advantage. She said only a… Guide, or a Kai could follow them? Does that make any sense to you?"
"Where's Yivsa?"
"I have no idea. I was alone in the chamber."
"What were you doing in there?" Kirana released her weapon and tugged on her trousers.
"The children–" Yisaoh said, getting out of bed.
"Stay with them," Kirana said. The noise had woken Tasia. She was already calling at them from the adjoining room. Kirana rounded on Gian again. "What do you mean, you were the only one there?"
"There wasn't any other guard. Someone called them away. There's something happening downstairs."
"Madness," Kirana muttered.
When she was dressed, she rushed into the chamber. Broken glass littered the table; a gaping hole had opened in the ceiling. How had she not heard that?
"What…?"
"They used sound barriers," Gian said. "They had at least one, maybe two parajistas with them. You wouldn't have heard anything, but you might have a headache from all the air pressure. It blocked the smoke, too."
"Where the fuck is everyone?" Kirana muttered. Smoke poured in from the stairwell. "What did they burn?"
"Everything, I think," Gian said. "The fire has cut us off. They'll need to clear it out before we can get reinforcements up here."
"We need to leave immediately. Yisaoh! Bring the children!" Kirana darted back into her office.
The children were bleary-eyed and whining. Kirana took Tasia into her arms. Yisaoh took Corina and Moira by the hands.
"I need you to stay close," Kirana said. "There's a fire, you understand?"
"Don't try the stairs," Gian said. "I can get us out."
"You?"
"I have some skill with Para," Gian said. "We can go out the way the others came in." She pointed at the ceiling.
Kirana exchanged a look with Yisaoh. Smoke continued to fill the chamber.
Gian said, "We are bound, Kirana. Murdering you risks me as well. You wanted to be allies. This is something allies do."
Kirana took Yisaoh's hand, and Gian bundled them all up into a puff of air and sent them flying through the tear in the ceiling. The children shrieked, and Kirana held onto them.
Gian brought the group back down on the plateau, just in front of the bridge leading to the temple. The plateau, too, was burning, though the blaze there had been contained to the garrison. Kirana noted a number of parajistas working along the edges of the blaze to contain it.
Gian alighted next to them.
Kirana found Yivsa organizing those fleeing the temple, and asked what had happened.
"A breach," Yivsa said. "Some omajista."
"Far more than that," Yisaoh said. "The Assembly Chamber was breached. Parajistas."
"Fuck," Yivsa said. "The omajista was a fucking distraction."
"The basement. Is Oravan still–"
"Yes, Empress, they've remained at their posts. The fire was contained to the upper floors."
"I need my wife and children moved."
"Of course. We're re-housing key personnel at Para's Temple."
"Good, fine. Do we have an omajista?"
"Oravan has a wink waiting, here. We sent three people up for you."
"None of them made it," Kirana said. "I want to know what happened to my guards. The Assembly Chamber door was open, and six guards missing."
"We'll look into it immediately, but it's highly likely they were drawn downstairs when the fires started, and the omajista… Well, there are a lot of bodies."
"I don't care what other issues we had to deal with," Kirana said. "The security of this temple was paramount."
"Yes, Empress."
Kirana seethed, but knew that yelling at Yivsa in the middle of the crisis wasn't going to solve anything.
She got her family off to Para's Temple, and made Yivsa personally escort them to safety. Kirana, for her part, lingered behind with Gian.
When her family was gone, Kirana said, "What were you doing up there?"
"I'd come to see you," Gian said, "but all the guards were gone. I even knocked at that chamber door. It was already open. They must have had someone on the inside."
Kirana narrowed her eyes. "What did you want to discuss?"
The double helix of the suns was just beginning to rise, washing the eastern mountains in a warm red glow.
"Progress on the People's Temple."
"In the middle of the night?"
"I thought you'd be up."
Kirana peered at her, but could detect no deception.
"We're close," Kirana said, shifting her attention back to the rising suns. "If the Dhai infiltrated the temple, it will have something to do with that. How did they… ah, the boy. He sank himself through the floor here. I wonder…"
"I'll need to gather my people," Gian said. "I left them waiting in the gardens."
"Better that than the banquet hall," Kirana said, and grimaced again at the smoke rising from the shimmering temple.
She went to the ring on the floor, the raised bit of the temple's flesh.
"Yivsa?" Kirana asked, toeing the smooth surface. "Where did that soldier put my brother's body?"
|
(Worldbreaker Saga 3) The Broken Heavens
|
Kameron Hurley
|
[
"fantasy",
"LGBT",
"science fiction fantasy"
] |
[] |
Chapter 42
|
Lilia fell heavily down and back, tweaking her left leg. She howled. Pain ran up her knee and through her hip like a dagger. The air was damp. She pushed against the spongy floor, trying to get her bearings. A thin film of water covered the ground, soaking into her clothes. She bumped into someone else in the darkness.
"Light?" Roh's voice. "Maralah?"
A flicker of orange light brightened the immediate area. Lilia had a sense of a great deal of space, but all she could see in the ball of flame in Maralah's palm was the outer edges of their group, all tumbled around inside a large greenish circle on the floor that mirrored the one in the Assembly Chamber. The reek of rot and damp permeated everything. Lilia wrinkled her nose.
"Is this it?" Maralah asked, clearly disappointed.
"Raise the light higher," Lilia said.
Maralah released the ball of flame, and it floated above her, three, four, six more paces, then doubled in size, tripled, until its light finally reached the shadowy walls that enclosed them, if not the great bones of the ceiling.
Lilia gaped. It was not like the other temples. This chamber was at least four times the size, and each of the compass points had a circle on the floor like the one they stood within. Massive ribbed columns stretched from the circumference of the walls all the way to the center of the room, where they dipped beneath a massive pool of water and twisted up again, winding around a giant dais that glistened with damp and something more substantive, alive? The floor was off-kilter, and liquid pooled on the other side of the room; the drip of water sounded all around them. The air tasted stale.
She stared at the floor. It pulsed beneath her, moist and blue-black, pebbled with tiny bumps like the papillae on a tongue. Lilia walked out of the circle, following the downward tilt of the floor toward one of the columns that looked more like a fibrous band of muscle in this light. As she left the circle, the whole room began to glow. She gasped and froze.
"Don't move!" Roh said.
A blue band of light appeared at the edges of the floor and the ceiling. The muscular colonnades gave off a faint green glow, and the floor sprang to life, a roiling field of deep crimson so dark it was almost black. Above them, the ceiling seemed to move. The great eye of Oma appeared there, illuminating what had been hidden: the ceiling here mirrored the ceiling in the Assembly Chamber, only on a much grander scale. The blinking eye of Oma shed light onto a glistening raised platform. The rest of the ceiling came alive: blue Para, over another dais; green Tira; and purple Sina, its light bleeding across another pedestal. Twinkling stars speckled the ceiling, glowing faint blue and red and white. As Lilia watched, they began to move, orbiting around the top of the chamber.
"It's like it's… like we woke it up," Lilia said.
Roh slowly came after her, stepping gingerly on the spongy floor. "It matches the drawings," Roh said.
"You have any idea where to start?" she asked. "We don't have much time. I… Everyone, get into the places with the right symbols!"
Luna trailed after Lilia, quiet as a ghost. The others fanned out across the squelching floor, examining the strange architecture.
Roh snatched at Lilia's sleeve. "Li," he blurted. "Oma's Temple said something to me, when we came through the floor."
"It talks to you?"
"It said you were going to destroy them, the temples. That you were here to ruin everything. Is that true?"
"No. I'm here to turn back the Tai Mora and close the ways between the worlds. That's all. That's our plan. Whatever you're hearing… I don't know what gave it that idea." But what he said made her doubt herself. Was she going to do something wrong? Maybe it was best he didn't give her the other options.
Roh said, "Maybe… maybe we should have Luna operate the mechanism instead. You said the Worldbreaker could be either of you, anyone who could learn."
"It's been decided, Roh, and planned. I'm not changing it. The temple was wrong. I know what I'm doing."
Roh met her look for a breath, then turned away. "There should be marks for the jistas," he said, limping over to one of the knobby pedestals. "Here they are. Sinajista here. Maralah?"
Kadaan said, "I want to make sure we have defenses up. If they come down through the floor like we did–"
"I don't think they can," Roh said, "not without a Kai or a Guide. But there are certainly other ways they could get in, too. It's entirely possible we're underwater now, and they'll pierce the dome here and swamp us. It's likely they came to Fasia's Point because it's the closest land mass to the temple mark on the map."
Lilia stood at the edge of the pool of water surrounding the central dais. Luna came up beside her.
"That's not easy to get up on," Luna said.
"Let alone stay on," Lilia said. The dais was easily as high as her shoulder. Had people been taller in the past?
"Maybe it was meant for giants, or Saiduan," Luna said.
"Well, they have us."
Maralah went to the dais marked with the sinajista sign and wrinkled her nose. The dais bloomed, opening like a flower and revealing great red petals. She sniffed at it. "Smells like apples. What kind of device is this, really?"
"I don't know," Lilia said. "I don't need to. I just need it to work."
Kadaan said, "There's something wrong."
"What?" Lilia asked.
He still stood in the circle, one hand raised. "I can feel something… here. There's a good deal of power."
"Let's bring more," Lilia said. "Salifa, you're there. The one with Tira's mark."
Salifa tentatively approached another pedestal, which glowed brilliant green and unfurled long, slithering green tentacles that wrapped the base of it. "Is this… safe?" Salifa ventured.
"We'll find out," Lilia said. She was still eying the large pedestal over the water. "Roh, can you just… use Para to get me up there?"
"Yes," he said. "Ready?"
She nodded. An invisible twist of air circled Lilia's waist and propelled her to the top of the dais. Roh set her down carefully, but she still stumbled, and went to one knee. The pedestal was warm beneath her hand, and had the same smooth texture as the skin of the temples. But it did nothing when she touched it.
"Everyone get in place!" Lilia called.
Maralah said, "You had best be ready. Once we are locked into this, there's no going back."
"I've been ready my whole life," Lilia said.
Maralah stepped up into the center of the petaled dais, and raised her hand. The air thickened.
A searing jet of purple mist enveloped her. Her body went rigid, back arched, mouth agape, as the mist suspended her six paces above the dais.
The others recoiled, and Lilia had to direct them. "Salifa, Kadaan, Anavha! It's time!"
Kadaan exchanged one last look with Roh. "Hold the defensive wall?"
"I have it," Roh said.
Kadaan stepped onto Para's dais as it purled open, revealing slick blue leaves that trembled as he stepped onto them. Blue mist engulfed him, and he, too, became caught in the whirlwind of power, rising from his place.
Salifa closed her eyes and stepped up onto her pedestal. Pulled on Tira. Lilia held her breath, fascinated to see the multicolored breath of all the satellites herself for the first time.
Zezili shouted at the fighters, instructing them to take up defensive positions around the outer circle of pillars.
"Anavha!" Roh said. "We need you to step in, Anavha."
Anavha trembled as he approached Oma's dais, a great black knobby thing that began oozing red fluid, thick as mud, as he came forward.
"I can't!" Anavha said.
Roh called to Saradyn. "Help him!"
Saradyn took Anavha by the waist and hauled him up onto the dais. Anavha shrieked, but settled onto it, exchanging another look with Roh.
"You can do this," Roh said.
Anavha closed his eyes. Raised his hand. Oma's crimson breath swirled up from the bottom of the pedestal and blanketed him.
Lilia waited, expecting something to happen to her dais, but nothing did. "What are we doing wrong?" she called to Luna.
"We need the Key," Luna said. "Taigan? Do you see it?"
Taigan stood just outside the ring of columns, frowning. "I see what looks like a very uncomfortable cage," he said.
The position for the Key was a twisted white structure that bisected the room, floor to ceiling, just behind where Lilia stood. It looked like a great tendon with a body-sized gap at the center.
"Taigan," Lilia said, "you're the last one. You want to burn them all up? This is how to do it."
"Who's to say I couldn't just go back and–"
"Taigan! Please!"
He shrugged and sauntered over to the great quivering mass of the web.
The air trembled. Lilia felt a deep groaning beneath her, as if the whole room were shifting.
"What is that?" Zezili yelled.
The circle on the floor they had come through glowed a brilliant green.
"Oh no," Roh said, "someone's coming through."
"Hold the line!" Zezili called.
Lilia screamed, "Taigan!"
Taigan heaved a great sigh, and climbed up into the great gory cage. The moment he stepped inside, a burst of brilliance emanated from the other pedestals, blinding Lilia.
The dais beneath her heaved like a ship at sea. Her stomach churned. And then something in her – she could not say what it was, or where it had been – something within her opened, some vital connection that had long been burned closed.
She gasped.
Taigan's clothes and hair were instantly incinerated. His body – the flesh, the tendon, muscle, bone – burst into a fine red mist that spun around in the chamber, coagulating together into a fiery red eye of blood.
Lilia's stomach heaved. The blood rippled, became flesh, great gobs of it roiling and flexing like sticky cheese. His body was trying to remake itself.
The gobs of flesh burst again, imploded back into the red eye, the gory mist. A blinding white light pierced through the organic cloud of ephemera that had once been Taigan as the form began to flush with new skin again, roiling and bubbling with half-formed, inhuman shapes before breaking again under the incredible power being drawn from all five temples.
The light shuddered through the great tendon and through the water all around Lilia, crawling up her dais as she began to rise from it, as if caught up by the hand of a god.
She spread her arms, and light burst from her fingertips, flooding the room. All around her, a massive shifting orrery bloomed, bursting into being as if it had been there all along, and she had simply not been equipped to see it. She found herself floating inside a multicolored sphere of power, and struggled to stay upright.
The game, the game, how to start the game?
She raised her left hand and concentrated on the nearest sphere, a great red orb. It hummed through the air and floated just above her palm. When she gripped it, her fingers found purchase. It was solid. She thought she would see her reflection in its shimmering surface, but no – instead she saw great armies, all marching toward the center of the world. She recoiled. Released the sphere. It floated back into the whirling orrery.
"I don't think I need the piece!" Lilia called down at Zezili. "It's responding without that symbol! I can do this myself!"
Her attention was so fixed on the spheres that she heard Zezili's voice only dimly.
"They're here! They're sending more! Defenses up?"
Lilia felt a little smile creep across her face. "Let them come," she whispered, and called on more power.
Her shadow fell across Luna, below, who trembled.
|
(Worldbreaker Saga 3) The Broken Heavens
|
Kameron Hurley
|
[
"fantasy",
"LGBT",
"science fiction fantasy"
] |
[] |
Chapter 43
|
Kirana brought them all together in the Assembly Chamber – Gian and her jistas, Yivsa and twenty of her best soldiers. She had one of the stargazers, Talahina, there as well. She wanted a scholar with them, just in case. She had two of her own omajistas, Mysa and Shova, standing side by side. The smell of smoke still permeated the air. Much of the temple's interior still burned, but had been contained by four very exhausted parajistas. She had called them all from the coast, winking them here quickly from their failed attempts to smother the People's Temple.
Yivsa poured a large jar of Kirana's brother's mud-thick blood onto the ring in the floor. The ring of flesh glowed softly blue, just as it had done when the boy, Roh, had stepped into it and disappeared through the floor as he held the book.
"Let's see what we can do," Kirana said. "Yivsa, take Mysa and Shova with you and ready your weapons. Gian, we'll wait until they are in place and open a wink to us from… wherever this goes. I don't want to risk this entrance for all of us. You said they had twenty people?"
Gian nodded. "I had time to count them. They joined hands and stepped onto that circle. They will no doubt have defenses in place."
"Then let's prepare to break their defenses," Kirana said. "Remember, we don't care about who they have in the niches, those four jistas. They will be locked in until this ends. We want to control the center."
"Who will operate it?" Gian asked.
"I will," Kirana said. "We know enough to do the minimum. Close the ways between the worlds. The rest, we can do in time. In thirty hours, this will be over, one way or another."
Yivsa raised her hand. "You heard her. Mysa, Shova, to me, one on either side of the circle." She gave orders to the others, and then they stretched out their hands and clasped them.
Yivsa stepped onto the glowing blue ring. The others followed.
Kirana took a breath. Nothing happened.
"Maybe it doesn't respond to him?" Gian said.
"He's yours, temple," Kirana muttered. "Fucking take him."
And Yivsa and the others sank through the floor.
Kirana smiled. Those remaining in the chamber shifted uncomfortably. One of Gian's little parajistas gasped.
"Now what?" Gian asked.
"We wait," Kirana said.
The air shuddered a moment later. A wink opened just above the Assembly Chamber table, and brilliant white light poured into the room.
Kirana recoiled.
On the other side, Yivsa yelled at her to come through. "They're already in place! We need to overwhelm them!"
Gian strode through first, much to Kirana's annoyance. Kirana didn't want her to take some fatal blow so early in the day.
A hot wind emanated from the wink. Kirana waited for Gian's parajistas to put up defenses, then stepped through with her tirajistas beside her.
Mysa and Shova had both opened winks. The second wink looked out onto the sandy peninsula where Monshara's soldiers waited to reinforce them.
Kirana stumbled on the sloping floor. Yivsa held out a hand, but Kirana ignored it, transfixed by the flaming figure at the center of the room. She knew exactly who it was, the ghost of a girl who had come to her before Kuallina, and sat her down later over a poisoned meal, the little rebel girl all the Dhai proclaimed the next Faith Ahya, their prophet-god.
"Can you hold…" Kirana shouted at Yivsa as a great rumbling shook the chamber. The floor tilted and heaved. The temple itself moaned. Water began to bubble up from the floor's lowest side. Were they… sinking? Had the temple shifted off the sand bar?
A great ball of light rolled off Lilia, hurtling itself toward Kirana.
"Fuck," Kirana said.
Zezili kept low; there were too many jistas in the room and too much power. What she needed were more projectile weapons to distract the jistas. The tangled defenses and offenses were mostly parajista and sinajista, air and fire, and the best defense against both was to wait for a gap in their casts. She saw Kirana immediately, and barked, "Her! That's the one! Kill the head and the beast dies!"
A blast of heat crackled, burning up three fighters and one of the jistas.
Zezili came up quickly, hunched over, yelling at her people to close the line.
Something thudded into her shoulder. She went down.
Shocked, winded, Zezili looked around, sword raised. People were coming through the second wink, the one that opened onto the plateau. She recognized the man with the bow immediately. Natanial. That fucking fuck.
Behind him, waving through more jistas, was Monshara. Oh, Monshara, how long ago that acquaintance had been. And here Monshara was, still fighting for these awful people.
Zezili pushed herself up. Fuck them. Fuck Natanial. She heaved herself toward him, breaking the line.
Kirana surged into the air, brought aloft by a spinning rainbow of powerful light. She whirled toward the central pedestal and the burning figure of the girl there.
The girl's face was a bitter rictus. "I want to murder you!"
"Do it then!" Kirana shouted. "You'll murder yourself, too. Did you forget that? Forget you're one of us? Kill me, and you kill yourself, and you kill your little friend Gian too. Did you see her? Fallen from the sky, far tougher than that little nymph you brought to the table. Send us all back to our dead world, and you'll be there with us, hacking your guts out."
Invisible bands of power constricted Kirana's body. She gasped.
"Not the Tai Mora," Lilia said. "Not all of us. Just you, Kirana. Just. You."
"Gian and I are… bound…" Kirana gasped. "Kill me… you kill her too… How many… more times… will you… kill her?"
"I want to murder you!"
"Do it. Do it, you coward!"
"I want you to suffer as my mother suffered."
"No one can suffer that much."
Lilia screamed.
Natanial let loose another arrow; it slammed just below the first into Zezili's left shoulder. She kept coming, like an angry bear. He backed up; she was too close now. He shouldered his bow and pulled his sword.
Zezili tackled him. They both went over. Behind her, her lines of fighters broke, one after another, in the face of overwhelming offenses. Monshara and Natanial had brought a fucking army with them. Far more than Lilia or her Saiduan had ever anticipated.
Natanial's hands found her throat. Her grip found his as well. They lay locked like that, grunting and gasping, splashing around on the cold floor.
A knife of cold fire went through Zezili's body. She gaped. Natanial punched her, and she went over.
Zezili gazed up to see Monshara standing over her with a great infused weapon, eyes blazing.
"Wait!" Zezili said.
A massive cracking filled the room, and water from the lower end of the temple rushed in, faster and faster as the temple continued to plunge deeper into the sea. Water began to pour from the ceiling. How far under were they already? Death by Monshara's hand, or the sea's?
Death on all sides.
Lilia was aware of Gian breaking through the defenses. Roh had fallen. The shield of air lay broken. Gian's forces were already attacking Anavha and Kadaan, trying to loosen them from their pedestals.
Saradyn was the last defense around Roh, and Gian cut through him like his raging, bearish body was nothing. She was fast, determined. Her hair had come undone, and blew back across her face; Gian, my Gian, Lilia thought. No, no, she is just another Gian. Who Gian could have been, in another world. I destroyed my Gian. I destroyed them all.
"Lilia!" Gian yelled. She came to the edge of the water and raised her weapon. "Don't do this! There's another solution. We can–"
"You're a liar! You're all liars! She's taken everything!"
"Lilia!"
Lilia screamed, and squeezed.
Kirana's back bent, her mouth open in a silent cry. Blood burst from Kirana's eyes and nose, splattered her mouth.
Gian crumpled like a puppet with a cut string. Tumbled into a heap on the floor. Water rushed over her body, growing deeper and deeper.
Lilia sobbed and released Kirana. She fell into the water surrounding the pedestal, floating face down, not so much as a bubble of breath escaping her lungs. Blood sank swiftly through the water in whirling tendrils.
The temple shuddered again.
Lilia released the wave of power, the same way she used to release Oma's breath. But the orrery still whirled around them, locked into orbit, waiting for someone to break the world. Or perhaps put it back together again. Was that possible? Lilia thought. Was that ever possible?
Her heart hurt. She saw Zezili flopping around on the floor like a breathless fish. Lilia sank to her knees. Luna, just behind her, shouted, "Lilia! Lilia, you haven't stopped it yet!"
Lilia gazed at the bodies of Gian and Kirana. She cried, great gasping sobs that racked her body.
Behind her, Luna waded across the water and began to climb up the pedestal. Luna, breathless, pulled hirself onto the dais and took Lilia by the shoulders. "Lilia? You hear me? We aren't done."
"I'm done," Lilia sobbed. "I'm done."
"We're not here for revenge," Luna said. "We're here to save the worlds."
Lilia got to her feet, shakily. The chamber heaved again. Kirana's people rushed to her body. Someone raised a bow, notched an arrow.
"Let them," Lilia said. She raised her arms. "Go ahead!"
Light suffused the platform again, a burst of power so great it blew Lilia off the pedestal and into the water below. She gasped and paddled, crawling up beside Kirana's body. Gazed up.
Luna drew deeply on the mass of energy, body shivering with power. Luna began drawing globes together; they crashed and sparked.
Lilia sobbed. What came after closing the ways between the worlds? Nothing. No future, for her or for any of them. She pushed over Kirana's body and stared into her bloody face.
"You did all of this," Lilia said. "Now you and I are done."
Several of the Tai Mora came to the edge of the water, weapons pointed at Lilia. Lilia pulled Kirana's head into her lap. "Let us alone," she said.
There was a stir behind them as the orbs crackled overhead. Something… else was coming through the wink.
Great, golden-skinned figures with wasp-like waists and bulging green eyes tottered through the wink. Lilia had a long moment of dissonance, unable to comprehend what she was seeing. The figures walked on four legs, and they were tall, so tall, like giants! A woman rode through after them on a chariot pulled by two more of the figures, her eyes blazing, a misty whirlwind of power making the air around her shimmer like a soap bubble.
"No!" Lilia yelled.
Lilia had killed Kirana. She had murdered her. The body, here… Lilia held Kirana's head, gazed into the sightless eyes, and raised her gaze to meet the piercing stare of this new version, this more powerful version, whose terrible soldiers were tearing apart Lilia's companions and the Tai Mora with equal relish.
By killing this Kirana, all Lilia had done was free another to take her place.
A man rode the great chariot behind this new Kirana. He stepped off as it came to a halt a few paces from the pedestal.
"Suari!" this new Kirana said. "Get that one off the dais! Keep the others in place! I want control over this!"
This Kirana spoke accented Dhai, not Tai Mora.
Lilia gaped at her, but this Kirana paid her hardly a glance. A sneer at the body of the dead Kirana, but no more. Her forces were intent on controlling the device.
What did I do? Lilia thought. What terrible thing did I do? She had killed this Kirana… only to unleash another one. A darker one. Opening the way again and again to another Kirana…
Oh no. Oh no…
A wave of fire rolled toward her. She shrieked, knocked back into the water. She splashed around, and finally crawled out the other side.
Suari was riding a wave of power to the top of the dais. He knocked Luna off with a great burst of fire. Luna fell, landing hard on the stones. Lilia heard the crack of Luna's skull. Saw the blood.
Lilia struggled out of the water, crawling toward Roh and Saradyn. The gleaming orrery shivered, waiting for another worldbreaker to operate it.
Not me, Lilia thought. It was never me. I chose wrong.
She got to her feet just as a passing Tai Mora swung her blade, catching Lilia in the side. Lilia gasped, stumbled. Blood bloomed from her belly.
|
(Worldbreaker Saga 3) The Broken Heavens
|
Kameron Hurley
|
[
"fantasy",
"LGBT",
"science fiction fantasy"
] |
[] |
Chapter 44
|
Roh's defenses burst. He lost his hold on Para and slid across the wet floor. Three arrows seethed through the broken defenses and sank into his guts. He rolled over, gasping. A wave of Tai Mora came at him. Saradyn roared and positioned himself in front of Roh, shielding him. The orbs of the orrery shimmered and danced in the room, obscuring his view, causing confusion and chaos. The trickling sound of water had become a constant stream, the mutter of multiple waterfalls. The water rose around him.
A wave of chittering figures burst forth from the wink that opened onto the plateau. Saradyn roared and threw himself at the figures. They hissed and broke around him, as if fearful or in thrall to him. He laughed, a great guffaw.
Saradyn grabbed Roh by the arm and hauled him up. Blood wept from Roh's guts. Pain made him woozy.
"The circle," Roh said. He looked back to where Lilia sat, weeping. "Get Lilia. I can go a while on my own."
The wasp-waisted figures continued to ignore him and Saradyn. Saradyn kept hold of Roh's arm, dragging him painfully through the water.
Saradyn looped another arm under Lilia's. Roh noted her wound. Gave one last look to the pedestals where Kadaan, Maralah, Anavha and Taigan were locked into the device. Luna's crumpled body was just visible on the other side of the main pedestal. The man this new Kirana had called Suari stood atop the pedestal, hand outstretched to the new Kirana.
Saradyn got them within six paces of the great green circle on the floor before an ax took him in the back. He went over, dropping them both.
Roh fumbled at the arrows in his guts. Snapped off the ends of them, and took Lilia by the collar.
"What did I do?" Lilia cried. "What did–"
Roh dragged Lilia back into the circle where they had arrived while the temple heaved around them. The stones groaned. Water continued to rise all around them. It was as deep as his shins now, rushing up faster and faster.
Roh took Lilia by the shoulders and shook her. "Listen to me! Would you listen? I told you."
"I didn't… I did the right–"
"You did the selfish thing," he said. "Don't you understand yet, Li? There's always another monster, another and another, behind them. You kill them, you become them, you lose everything you ever cared for." He was crying too, remembering what he had done to the Patron of Saiduan, and the path that had brought him here. All the selfish, terrible choices. "We made poor choices, Li. We are terrible, selfish people. We aren't Dhai at all."
Another surge of water rolled over them. Lilia gasped and spit water. Roh's knees weakened. He sank to the floor, arms wrapped around Lilia.
He closed his eyes. "I need to go back," he said. "Please, back to Oma's Temple. Not the Assembly Chamber… somewhere we can hide… please, can you do that, keeper? Can you hear me at all?"
Nothing. No voice. No help. After all this time, all this work getting them here, and they were going to let them die?"
"Temple keeper!" Roh said. "You made me your Guide. We're dying! We're going to–"
The floor swallowed them.
Darkness.
An absence of pain. Relief. Oma, he was so relieved, he was nothing but a wave of warm emotions.
My Guide.
"We failed," Roh said, or thought he said, because all was blackness and he could not feel his body.
Everyone does, my Guide. Perhaps we always choose wrong.
"You don't," Roh said. "We do."
Always the same choices.
"Give us another chance."
I can't do that. I'm just a beast.
"We can make better choices."
It's not your choice, the temple said. It's hers.
"Then give her another chance."
You believe in her?
"I always have."
A glimmer in the darkness. Brilliant white light.
|
(Worldbreaker Saga 3) The Broken Heavens
|
Kameron Hurley
|
[
"fantasy",
"LGBT",
"science fiction fantasy"
] |
[] |
Chapter 45
|
Lilia gasped and rolled over onto a cold floor, right next to a gaping hole that dropped into a chamber beneath her. Light flickered from below, illuminating the tangled roots that stuffed the chamber. The basements? The temple of Tira? Or Oma? Were they the same?
She felt a weight around her, a heavy… Roh?
Lilia shook him. "Roh, are we –" He did not move. His body was cool. Blood continued to ooze from his wounds.
"No, no, no," Lilia. "No, no."
She panicked. Her wound throbbed. She crawled across the floor, working her way toward the tangled roots. They would be looking for her, and for Roh, that other Kirana and her strange soldiers. Lilia needed to hide, needed to get away, needed to tend her wound. How long could she hide here?
She took hold of one of the tree roots and heaved herself up. Blood gushed through her fingers. She felt light-headed, light enough to fly.
Lilia stumbled through the darkness. She got painfully to her feet and hobbled across the floor, winding her way through twining roots. Blood continued to escape her fingers. I'm going to die down here, she thought, I'm going to die here with Roh and Gian and all the rest of them.
A cry came from behind her. The sound of boots on stones. They were looking for her. How had they known where she was? They must have felt the surge of power when they came through from the fifth temple.
This had to be Oma's Temple, didn't it? Why had the temple deposited them here instead of back in the Assembly Chamber where they had come through?
She leaned against a massive root, spitting blood. She tried to ball up her tunic and stem the flow of blood, and her hand wrapped around something, what was… The blood. The little vial of muddy blood from the child, the one Ahkio had raised to Li Kai.
Some old memory tugged at her as she pulled herself under and around root after root. Ahkio had… lost time here. Here, he had said, roots… A stone. Placing his hands against it to call the temple keeper, only to find himself pushed forward in time… while another version of him… went back.
Her breathing came loud and fast in her ears. Ahkio had… lost weeks of time, one Ahkio. But another Ahkio had lost only a day. He had gone back a full day.
He had made different choices.
It was at the very bottom of the temple, Ahkio had told them, the obelisk, tangling among heavy roots. Would it work the same way if she placed her hands on it? Push some version of her forward and another, please, Oma, perhaps another version… back? To start again?
To make better choices.
Lilia choked on a desperate sob. How foolish to even consider some future, when she was very likely to die in a few minutes.
All she had now, as her life dripped along the floor, was this. Ahkio could have been lying about everything. He was probably an impostor. But as she bled out, the story he had told kept her moving, kept her breathing, kept her searching for the broken stone of time.
It is hope that keeps us going, she thought, sliding around in the darkness in her own blood. Everything looked the same. So many shadows.
The shouting grew closer. She saw the light of a flame-fly lantern. They must have found the trail of blood. Black spots danced before her vision. She caught herself on one of the roots, leaned over it with all her weight, trying to stem the flow of blood. One foot. Another foot.
We are all stories, she thought dimly, moved by stories, pushed forward. We have to believe we can live. We have to believe there are choices. May your… what was the old Dhai proverb? May your choices be shaped by your hopes, not your fears. She felt the rage and despair bubble up in her again. She had been ruled by fear. She had murdered everyone she ever loved. Roh was right. She had not fought monsters. She had become one.
The lights behind her gave her enough light to see just ahead.
A large broken stone lay on its side; it had settled there in the twisting mass of rocks. If nothing else, she thought it looked like a nice grave marker. A good place to rest. She was sweating heavily. Her palms were slick.
She pushed herself through the tangle of roots. Lilia crawled the rest of the distance to the stone, watching the blood leave her body. Nausea overcame her. She dry heaved.
I put my hands on the stone, Ahkio had said. I went back a day. What a stupid story. What a mad thing.
But he was Kai, had been Kai.
Lilia pressed her hands to the cold stone. It stayed firm. She laughed, and coughed up a little blood. She set her cheek against the stone. Blood.
More shouting, nearer now. Again. Someone was hacking at the tree roots. She lay on her back as the blood pumped from her body.
Lilia dug into her pocket. Fumbled at the little vial of blood. She twisted at the cap. Her hands were so weak. So very weak. The cap popped off. Rolled next to her.
Lilia pressed two fingers into the gooey blood.
A lantern swung overhead.
"Here she is!" someone cried, in Dhai.
Lilia pressed her fingers to the stone.
A chill went through her bones.
The floor rumbled.
I need to go back, Lilia thought, please, Oma, give me one more chance, like you gave Ahkio.
And then the world was filled with light.
|
(Worldbreaker Saga 3) The Broken Heavens
|
Kameron Hurley
|
[
"fantasy",
"LGBT",
"science fiction fantasy"
] |
[] |
Chapter 46
|
"We've stemmed the assault," Suari said. "We're pursuing the last two, a boy and that girl who was working the orrery."
Kirana Javia Garika, Empress of Dorinah, Queen of the Tai Mora, Captain of the Seven Realms and ruler – finally! – of the known worlds, pressed her hands to the wood of the great Assembly Chamber. She could not keep the smile from her lips. She had achieved her decade-long campaign to defeat her Tai Mora double and usurp her from power over Raisa, and she felt fucking fantastic about it.
She admired how similar this table was to the one she had planned and plotted out this assault from on her own world, so very, very near to this one. Her soldiers worked busily through the temple, assuaging fears and rumor. She didn't know who had burned so much of the temple's interior here, but her allies assured her it was well contained, and the temple secure. She had murdered all of the other Kirana's soldiers inside the fifth temple, keeping her own identity safe, for a time.
"That girl and boy are a problem," Kirana said. "I know them from our side, or one very like her. Lilia, the girl – I want her killed as quickly as possible."
"Could I ask–"
"She always ruins my fucking plans," Kirana said. "I want her body. What about Luna? You got Luna fixed up? Closed the ways? If that's done, we can start handling the next phase of this assault."
"It's already done," Suari said. "I got Luna mended and back on the pedestal. The seams between every world but ours have been closed. We no longer need to worry about assaults from other worlds, but we can still bring our people through. There are instructions on… many other things that can be achieved with that power, though. We are interrogating Luna now. We may find a way to keep Para in the sky for far longer. Unlimited power for decades! All yours."
"Good," Kirana said. "Let's bring up that whole fifth temple again, though. All that quaking very nearly sent it to the bottom of the sea again. Put it out there on the plateau. It will be more stable.."
"Very well," Suari said.
"You did well, Suari," Kirana said.
"Being bound to you," he said, "meant I was also bound to her. That deception worked in our favor. Remarkably well."
"Told you, didn't I? Keep the faith, Suari! Get the rest of those Rhea-worshipping allies of ours into the other temples," she said. "I want to move quickly."
Despite her stated urgency, Kirana did not go immediately to find her own Yisaoh when Suari closed the wink. She still needed to ascertain where the former Kirana's Yisaoh and children were being sheltered, without giving herself away as… well, a different sort of Empress.
She traversed the temple, nodding to those who pressed thumb to forehead, and a little Dhai ran up to remind her that she had agreed to meet her mother for tea in the garden. Her real mother, of course, who had been here all this time, keeping her abreast of her counterpart's plans.
Spies, indeed. This world's Kirana had had no idea of the extent of it.
She met her mother in the garden as the double helix of the suns rose. Her mother peered at her.
Kirana laughed, and used the pass phrase they had agreed upon. "The ways between the worlds are ours."
Her mother clapped her hands and stood. Embraced her. Used her appropriate response: "Happy day! This is so joyful."
What an incredible thing, Kirana thought, to save herself and her own world from… well, herself.
"Mother, it's going to be so grand," Kirana said. "The power, the world. You've done so well. Thank you."
Her mother leaned over and pressed her forehead to Kirana's.
"I am so proud of you," her mother said. "No one else could have done this. No one else could have saved us."
"I did what had to be done," Kirana said. She finished her tea and rose. "I suspect I should announce it to our people here. And I'll need to find where they've hidden their version of Yisaoh and the children."
"I'm sure you'll make short order of it."
As Kirana stepped down from the little raised tea table, the air suddenly became cold, so cold it hurt her bones. She paused. Stared at the sky.
"What is it?" her mother asked.
Kirana grimaced. Her bones knew, knew because she had felt this before, in some other life. Knew because something that she thought had come together was now pulling apart.
"I don't know," Kirana said.
The ground trembled.
And there was light.
|
(Worldbreaker Saga 3) The Broken Heavens
|
Kameron Hurley
|
[
"fantasy",
"LGBT",
"science fiction fantasy"
] |
[] |
Chapter 47
|
Lilia gasped. She woke with the light of the swirling satellites in her eyes, peeping in through the window of the bed she slept in: the Aaldian farmhouse. She knew the pane of the window only too well.
She grabbed at her stomach where her wound was, but found her tunic untouched, her skin whole. No blood. No torn clothing. Silence, outside. Then the bark of a dog. A breath of wind. The creaking of the old house.
Namia barrelled into the doorway, signing at her: "Going?"
Lilia's heart pounded hard. Sweat soaked her back. "Namia!" she said, and hugged her close. Namia wriggled from her grasp.
"Going?" Namia signed again.
Lilla stared at the window. Still dark, very dark, the same time she had woken the morning before.
She heard Maralah, Roh and Kadaan already awake and conferring in the kitchen, in Saiduan. Zezili lay beside her, not asleep but staring at the ceiling.
"Are you ready?" Zezili asked. "I never feel tired. It was nice to just sit here for a minute, I guess."
Lilia just lay there, trying to still her racing heart. Namia shook her again.
"Not yet," Lilia said. "Just… sit here with me awhile."
"I'm so bored," Zezili said.
"Go kill something," Lilia said, slipping her shoes on. The floor was cold. "Just… Not a person. And not too far away, obviously."
Zezili sighed.
Lilia went out into the kitchen where Maralah, Roh, and Kadaan stood. Maralah and Roh held cups of hot tea.
"Awake already?" Maralah said.
"I've changed my mind," Lilia said. "Maralah was right. We need the sleep."
"But everyone will be awake, then," Roh said.
"It's all right," Lilia said. "I've learned… I know that there aren't any omajistas in the temple, not in the Assembly Chamber. They've been called away. And if we wait, well… if we wait, there will be even fewer people in the temple, come morning. We can all go in together. We don't need a second distraction."
"When did you learn that?" Maralah asked sharply.
"Trust it," Lilia said. "Taigan and I won't go in by ourselves. We'll come through the gate with the others. I know for certain no one will be there."
Maralah and Kadaan exchanged a look. "This is all very unexpected. Did you have some kind of vision? Or have you lost your nerve?" Maralah asked.
"It could be called a vision, maybe. I just… I have new information. You were right. Anavha needs to sleep. You, the men, all of us. Tired people make mistakes."
"When do we move then?" Maralah said. "You said yourself we're very much out of time."
"Just before noon," Lilia said. "Most people will be going down to the banquet hall for the noon meal."
"That's… a lot of missing hours, Li," Roh said. "You were so urgent before."
"Please, just… could you trust that I know better? Maralah agreed."
"I agreed that we needed more sleep," Maralah said, "especially Anavha. But another ten hours or more?"
"What do you suggest?" Lilia asked.
"Dawn," Maralah said. "That's another three hours."
"Roh?" Lilia asked. "Kadaan? Do you agree?"
"I'm good with dawn," Kadaan said. "I'm heading back to sleep, then. Roh?"
"In a minute," Roh said.
Maralah shook her head. "You can't go shifting this plan around," she said. "Any more changes–"
"It's going to need to be flexible," Lilia said. "There's so much we don't know."
"To bed again with me, then," Maralah said, eyeing them both one more time before she left.
Roh said, "What happened?"
"I can't… I can't really explain it."
"Try."
"You won't believe it."
"There's a good many things I wouldn't have believed two years ago," he said. "I'd believe them now."
She sat next to him at the table, so they almost touched. Reached for Maralah's abandoned cup of tea. Sipped it. Bitter.
"We lost," she said.
"We seem to do that."
"No, I mean… It was like I'd done it, the whole plan. And it went terribly."
"A dream?"
She rubbed her hand against her stomach, where the wound had been. "I don't think so."
"So, you have a better idea of how to do it this time?"
"I know how to do it differently."
"Did we live? Any of us?"
"No."
"Well," he said, standing. "Whatever we do this time will certainly be better than that."
"What if there's no way out, Roh?" she blurted.
He paused. "What do you mean?"
"What if this is all one big loop, one long cycle, that can't ever be broken? What if we are fools to try?"
"We'd be fools not to," he said.
Lilia fell asleep at the table. It was Zezili who woke her, just before dawn.
"Hey," Zezili said. "Everybody said you delayed the plan?"
Lilia yawned, trying to snatch at her dreams, but she had slept soundly, no echoes or memories.
"That's right," she said. "Be flexible."
Lilia woke Taigan up. He stretched and yawned and stilled as she told him the new plan.
Taigan frowned. "You and I won't go in the front?" he said. "That's so disappointing."
"I'm sure," Lilia said, giving him a long look that only made him shrug. She shivered at the memory of him burning the temple down around them, nearly murdering her on the stair. Taigan, ever the same in his unpredictability.
The others gathered around the table, making tea and pulling yams and turnips from the coals where they had been roasting since the evening before.
Lilia erased what they had mapped out a few hours earlier and said, "I've had some time to think. I still agree that the fire on the plateau will draw them out and create a distraction. But I don't believe it's necessary for Taigan and I to pull Kirana out. If we wait long enough, she will have left her chamber for the day."
"Probably for the fifth temple, though," Maralah said. "If she beats us to it–"
"We want her to."
"Why?" Roh said.
"Because once her jistas are in place, they're locked into the mechanism. And that also means she can't use them."
"How the fuck do you know that?" Zezili said.
"I have… sources," Lilia said. "All of her jistas are going to be concentrating their power there. She won't be thinking about defense in there because we won't have shown our hand too early. She'll have no idea we're coming."
"We still have to make sure no one is in the Assembly Chamber," Roh said. "It will be busier during the day."
"Not if Kirana is gone," Lilia said.
Maralah shook her head. "We don't know that."
"The Kai's living quarters are there," Roh said. "Her family could be there, and soldiers to guard them–"
"My contact can clear out the soldiers," Lilia said.
"Her family–"
"If they are there, we'll deal with them," Lilia said. "They are the least of our concerns. We still go in through the ceiling. We still step through the circle."
"Are we agreed in this?" Maralah asked.
Lilia held her breath.
Zezili said, "I'll do this whatever way kills the most of them."
Roh leaned over to Anavha, translating.
"How precise can you be?" Lilia asked Anavha. "Could you open a gate right on top of the table? Or right inside the door?"
Anavha considered that. "I could get you onto the table, yes. Or very near it."
"We act quickly," Lilia said. "If we are fast enough, focused enough, they will have no time to counter us. I know that now. I was… overthinking. I'm sorry. Kadaan and Roh go through Anavha's gate first, pushing out a defensive wall to mask the sound and keep others out. The rest of us, we make a circle around the table. There will be a raised green circle beneath it. Step right onto it and hold hands."
Taigan snorted. "And then what, we sing religious songs?"
The phrase sent a knife of fear through Lilia. She thought of the loop again, the possibility that all of this was going to end the same way. "Fast," Lilia said. "No thinking. I want to practice it, right here, around this table. Anavha?"
"Are you serious?" Roh said.
"Yes," Lilia said.
Anavha took them all outside, and opened a gate just above the kitchen table. They ran through the exercise three times. The third time, they were all through and in place in just twenty seconds. Lilia chewed at her fingernail after she finished the count the third time, wondering if that was going to be fast enough. Perhaps, perhaps not. Surely it would be fast enough to keep Taigan from burning the whole temple down around them. She could hope.
"That's as fast as it's getting," Maralah said. "We're losing time. If someone else gets up on that dais before you–"
"If someone's up there when we get in," Lilia said, "we'll have enough free jistas to knock them off. Our focus is on getting me on that pedestal, no matter the cost."
"And then we close the ways?" Maralah said.
"Yes," Lilia said. She didn't know what else to say, because she had no idea what she was actually going to do this time, knowing precisely what came next.
|
(Worldbreaker Saga 3) The Broken Heavens
|
Kameron Hurley
|
[
"fantasy",
"LGBT",
"science fiction fantasy"
] |
[] |
Chapter 48
|
Kirana lay in bed with Yisaoh, absently stroking her temple while the light of the satellites streamed through the windows and the double helix of the suns made their slow bid for dominance of the sky. She wanted to linger much longer, but she already heard the children awake in the next room, laughing. And the sky waited for no one.
She pulled off her coverlet and dressed just as someone knocked at the door and peeked in. A little Dhai servant, come to stoke the fire and set out tea.
"Come in," Kirana said.
"Shall I let in the children?" the Dhai girl asked.
"Give Yisaoh a few more moments to sleep."
"Yes, Empress." The girl set the tea tray on the table at the window and went to tend the banked fire.
Kirana had dreamed of death, of fighting herself in a large dark cavern as it slowly filled with water. She stood at the basin of water on her dresser and peeled off her sweaty shift. Wiped the stale sweat from her chest, under her arms, beneath her breasts. She gazed long at herself in the polished metal mirror, her face so thin and ravaged by worry and hunger that she could have been looking at a stranger. How would she know?
Another knock at the door.
"Yes?"
"Madah has urgent news from the beachhead."
Kirana pulled on her shift again and opened the door. A little Tai Mora page stood there, fairly shaking. "She opened a way into the Assembly Chamber?"
"Yes, Empress."
"Tell her I'll be a moment."
Kirana dressed. Kissed Yisaoh. Yisaoh murmured something, but did not wake.
Kirana went through her office and into the Assembly Chamber where Madah already waited, pacing the room with Mysa Joasta, one of the omajistas Kirana had assigned to her.
"News?" Kirana asked.
"The sand bar has become unstable," Madah said. "I don't suggest we try and brute force our way in any longer. I can move the temple, if you give me a few more jistas, but I'm worried it relies on the sea water. That it breaths it."
"I have a better idea," Kirana said. "I'll have Yivsa bring a gift, one the temple may well recognize."
"The boy's blood?"
"Oravan said it worked downstairs, to wake the temple keeper. They got little out of it, though. Just more nonsense about a guide and a key."
"You think it will recognize you, with his blood?"
"I will make it recognize me," Kirana said. "You have everyone assembled on the beachhead?"
"We're ready."
"Give me a few minutes to prepare. I want Himsa and Talahina to come with us."
When she had gathered her stargazers, Mysa opened a wink between the temple's Assembly Chamber and the sandbar about fifteen hundred paces from the shoreline where Gian and her jistas waited for them.
"This is quite an undertaking," Gian said.
"I expected nothing less," Kirana said.
The seething leviathan of the temple pulsed so strongly the water rippled around it; the sandbar trembled slightly.
Kirana freed the blood inside her jar and smeared it on her palm. She peered at the gooey creature and smiled grimly. "Let's see what you say now, friend." She pressed her palm to its skin.
A tremor. A sigh.
A seam opened in the side of the leviathan, and a gush of seawater poured out, soaking Kirana's shoes.
"In!" Kirana called to those behind her. "I want to open another wink between this temple and the basement in Oma's Temple so we can communicate with them there. Are the jistas still locked into the other temples?"
"Yes," Madah said. "No change."
Kirana waited for her force of jistas and fighters to enter ahead of her; many were the same trusted people she had left with Yisaoh back on their world. When Kirana finally slipped through the slit in the temple's skin, Talahina was already ordering around the jistas and getting them up onto pedestals. The great cavern sparkled with light; the constellations on the ceiling began to move and shimmer.
Kirana gaped, taking in the measure of the cavern. Her feet splashed in the water beneath her. "An organic machine," she said.
Gian, beside her, said, "Like our ark. Something built, awakened, and left… sleeping, for a time."
"Now we wake it up," Kirana said.
Her parajista stepped onto a glowing blue pedestal and a surge of power bent him nearly double. His mouth opened in a silent scream.
The tirajista and sinajista were next. Talahina conferred with Oravan, and they argued over something.
Kirana came over to them. "What is it?"
"We need someone to go in there, the Key," Oravan said, gesturing to a great white webbing that bisected the cavern. "These last two pieces we were… less certain about. Let's ask Mysa."
"I don't want to risk too many omajistas," Kirana said. "I don't want to get stuck in here."
"Suari would have been–" Talahina began.
"We don't have him," Kirana snapped. "Does it have to be a jista?"
"Yes," Talahina said.
"Gian?" Kirana said. "You have a strong jista?"
Gian frowned. Nodded. She called up three of her people and gave them over to Oravan.
Oravan instructed the first to get up into the webbing and then call on his star.
There was a brilliant flash of white light, then a sound like a burst melon. Bits of flesh and blood, broken bones and gooey viscera, splattered them all as the jista was obliterated by the combined burst of power.
"Well, that… didn't work," Oravan said, staring at the fleshy bits of what was left of the jista.
"Try another until it does work!" Kirana said. "I'm getting up on that pedestal."
Talahina said, "Are you sure? What if–"
"If anyone's going to break the world, it's me," Kirana said. She climbed up. Once standing there, she wiped her palms on her tunic. Below, Gian looked less than impressed.
"How much of this are you guessing at?" Gian called.
Kirana said, "Have you done this before? Make a good suggestion or get out of the way."
A sound behind her. A gasp from the jistas nearby. Oravan swore.
Kirana swung her gaze to the other side of the chamber where a group of around two dozen people were already scrambling to their feet. They had simply… appeared. No wink, no– She felt the wave of air headed toward her, too late. Kirana tumbled off the pedestal and into the water below.
|
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