The Obelisk Gate

by N. K. Jemisin

  You try grabbing onto the root-thread, thinking maybe to stall it or starve it of strength, but

  Oh

  no

  there is hate and

  we all do what we have to do

  there is anger and

  ah; hello, little enemy

  “Hey!” Hjarka’s voice in your ear, a shout. “Wake the fuck up!” You jerk out of the fog you weren’t aware of drifting into. Okay. You stay away from the root-tendril, lest you get another taste of whatever is driving the thing. That instant of contact was worth it, though, because now you know what to do.

  You visualize scissors with edges of infinite fineness and blades of glimmering silver. Cut the lead. Cut the tendrils or they may grow again. Cut the contamination before it can set hooks any deeper in her. You’re thinking of Tonkee as you do this. Wanting to save her life. But Tonkee is not Tonkee to you right now; she is a collection of particles and substances. You make the cut.

  This isn’t your fault. I know you won’t ever believe it, but… it isn’t.

  And when you manage to relax your sessapinae and adjust your perception back to the macro scale and you find yourself covered, absolutely covered in blood, you’re surprised. You don’t quite understand why Tonkee is on the floor, gasping, her body surrounded by a spreading pool as Hjarka shouts at one of the Strongbacks to hand her his belt, now, now. You feel the jerk of the iron shard nearby and twitch in alarm, because you know now what those things are trying to do, and that they are evil. But when you turn to look at the iron shard, you’re confused, because all you see is smooth bronze skin streaked with blood and a scrap of familiar cloth. Then there is a sort of twitchy movement, weight making itself known in your hand, and. And. Well. You’re holding Tonkee’s severed arm.

  You drop it. Fling it, more like, violent in your shock. It bounces just beyond Ykka and the two Strongbacks who are clustering around Tonkee and doing something, maybe trying to save her life, you can’t even wrap your head around that, because now you see that the cut end of Tonkee’s arm is a perfect, slightly slanted cross-section, still bleeding and twitching because you just cut it off, but wait no that is not the only reason.

  From a small hole near the bone you see something wriggle forth. The hole is the cross-section of an artery. The something is the iron shard, which drops to the smooth green floor and then lies amid the splattered blood as if it is nothing more than a harmless bit of metal.

  Hello, little enemy.

  INTERLUDE

  There is a thing you will not see happening, yet that is going to impact the rest of your life. Imagine it. Imagine me. You know what I am, you think, both with your thinking mind and the animal, instinctive part of you. You see a stone body clothed in flesh, and even though you never really believed I was human, you did think of me as a child. You still think it, though Alabaster has told you the truth—that I haven’t been a child since before your language existed. Perhaps I was never a child. Hearing this and believing it are two different things, however.

  You should imagine me as what I truly am among my kind, then: old, and powerful, and greatly feared. A legend. A monster.

  You should imagine—

  Castrima as an egg. Motes surround this egg, lurking in the stone. Eggs are a rich prize for scavengers, and easy to devour if left unguarded. This one is being devoured, though the people of Castrima are barely aware of the act. (Ykka alone, I think, and even she only suspects.) Such a leisurely repast isn’t a thing most of your kind would notice. We are a very slow people. It will be deadly nevertheless, once the devouring is done.

  Yet something has made the scavengers pause, teeth bared but not sinking in. There is another old and powerful one here: the one you call Antimony. She isn’t interested in guarding the egg, but she could, if she chose. She will, if they attempt to poach her Alabaster. The others are aware of this, and wary of her. They shouldn’t be.

  I’m the one they should fear.

  I destroy three of them on the first day after I leave you. As you stand sharing a mellow with Ykka, I tear apart Ykka’s stone eater, the red-haired creature that she’s been calling Luster and you’ve been calling Ruby Hair. Filthy parasite, lurking only to take and give nothing back! I despise her. We are meant for better. Then I take the two who have been stalking Alabaster, hoping to dart in should Antimony become distracted—this is not because Antimony needs the help, mind, but simply because our race cannot bear that level of stupidity. I cull them for the good of us all.

  (They’re not really dead, if that troubles you. We cannot die. In ten thousand years or ten million, they will reconstitute themselves from the component atoms into which I’ve scattered them. A long time in which to contemplate their folly, and do better next time.)

  This initial slaughter makes many of the others flee; scavengers are cowards at heart. They don’t go far, though. Of those who remain near, a few attempt parley. Plenty for us all, they say. If even one has the potential… but I catch some of these watching you and not Alabaster.

  They confess to me, as I circle them and pretend that I might be merciful. They speak of another old one—one who is known to me from conflicts long ago. He, too, has a vision for our kind, in opposition to mine. He knows of you, my Essun, and he would kill you if he could, because you mean to finish what Alabaster began. He can’t get to you with me in the way… but he can push you to destroy yourself. He’s even found some greedy human allies up north to help him do so.

  Ah, this ridiculous war of ours. We use your kind so easily. Even you, my Essun, my treasure, my pawn. One day, I hope, you will forgive me.

  14

  you’re invited!

  SIX MONTHS PASS IN THE undifferentiated white light of an ancient magic-fueled survival shelter. After the first few days you start wrapping cloth around your eyes when you’re tired, to create your own day and night. It works passably.

  Tonkee’s arm survives the reattachment, though she gets a bad infection at one point, which Lerna’s basic antibiotics seem powerless to stop. She lives, though by the time the fever and livid infection lines have faded, her fingers have lost some of their fine movement and she gets phantom tinglings and numbness throughout the limb. Lerna thinks this will be permanent. Tonkee mutters imprecations about it sometimes, whenever you track her down in the middle of core sampling or whatever she’s doing and force her to go meet with the Innovator caste head. Whenever she gets too free with the “arm-chopper” insults, you remind her first that unleashing a piece of the Evil Earth to crawl through her flesh was her own damned fault, and second that you’re the only reason Ykka hasn’t had her killed yet, so maybe she should consider shutting up. She does, but she’s still an ass about it. Nothing ever really changes in the Stillness.

  And yet… sometimes things do.

  Lerna forgives you for being a monster. That’s not exactly it. You and he still can’t talk about Tirimo easily. Still, he heard your raging fight with Ykka all through the surgery that he performed on Tonkee’s arm, and that means something to him. Ykka wanted Tonkee left to die on the table. You argued for her life, and won. Lerna knows now that there’s more to you than death. You’re not sure you agree with that assessment, but it’s a relief to have something of your old friendship back.

  Hjarka starts courting Tonkee. Tonkee doesn’t react well at first. She’s mostly just confused when gifts of dead animals and books start appearing in the apartment, brought by with a too-casual, “In case that big brain of hers needs something to chew on,” and a wink. You’re the one who has to explain to Tonkee that Hjarka’s decided, through whatever convoluted set of values the big woman holds dear, that an ex-commless geomest with the social skills of a rock represents the pinnacle of desirability. Then Tonkee is mostly annoyed, complaining about “distractions” and “the vagaries of the ephemeral” and the need to “decenter the flesh.” You mostly ignore all of it.

  It’s the books that settle the issue. Hjarka seems to pick them by the number of many-syllab
led words on their spines, but you come home a few times to find Tonkee engrossed in them. Eventually you come home to find Tonkee’s room curtain drawn and Tonkee engrossed in Hjarka, or so the sounds from beyond would suggest. You didn’t think they could do that much with her bum arm. Huh.

  Perhaps it is this new sense of connection to Castrima that causes Tonkee to begin trying to prove her worth to Ykka. (Or maybe it’s just pride; Tonkee bristles so when Ykka once says that Tonkee isn’t as useful to the comm as its hardest-working Strongback.) Whatever the reason, Tonkee brings the council a new predictive model that she’s worked out: Unless Castrima finds a stable source of animal protein, some comm members will start showing deprivation symptoms within a year. “It’ll start with the meat stupids,” she tells all of you. “Forgetfulness, tiredness, little things like that. But it’s a kind of anemia. If it goes on, the result is dementia and nerve damage. You can figure out the rest.”

  There are too many lorist tales of what can happen to a comm without meat. It will make people weak and paranoid, the community becoming vulnerable to attack. The only choice that will prevent this outcome, Tonkee explains, is cannibalism. Planting more beans just isn’t enough.

  The report is useful information, but nobody really wanted to hear it, and Ykka doesn’t like Tonkee any better for sharing it. You thank Tonkee after the meeting, since no one else did. Her lower jaw juts out a bit as she replies, “Well, I won’t be able to continue my studies if we all start killing and eating each other, so.”

  You shunt the orogene children’s lessons to Temell, another adult orogene in the comm. The children complain that he’s not very good—none of your finesse, and while he goes easier on them, they’re not learning as much. (It’s nice to be appreciated, if after the fact.) You do start training Cutter as an alternative, after he asks you to show him how you cut off Tonkee’s arm. You doubt he’ll ever perceive magic or move obelisks, but he’s at least first-ring level, and you want to see if you can make him a two- or three-ringer. Just because. Apparently higher-level teaching doesn’t interfere with what you’re learning from Alabaster—or at least, ’Baster doesn’t complain about it. You’ll take it. You’ve missed teaching.

  (You offer an exchange of techniques to Ykka, since she shows no interest in lessons. You want to know how she does the things she does. “Nope,” she says, winking at you in a way that’s not really teasing. “Gotta keep some tricks up my sleeve so you won’t ice me someday.”)

  An all-volunteer trading party goes north to try to reach the comm of Tettehee. They do not return. Ykka nixes all future attempts, and you do not protest this. One of your former orogeny students was with the missing party.

  Aside from the food supply issue, however, Castrima thrives in those six months. One woman gets pregnant without permission, which is a big problem. Babies contribute nothing useful to a comm for years, and no comm can tolerate many useless people during a Season. Ykka decides that the woman’s household of two married couples will not receive an increased share until someone elderly or infirm dies to clear the way for the unauthorized baby. You get into another fight with Ykka about that, because you know full well she meant Alabaster when she offhandedly added, “Shouldn’t be long,” to the woman. Ykka’s unapologetic: She did mean Alabaster and she hopes he dies soon, because at least a baby has future value.

  Two good outcomes result from that fracas: Everyone trusts you more after seeing you shout at the top of your lungs in the middle of Flat Top without causing so much as a tremor, and the Breeders decide to speak up for the new baby in order to settle the dispute. Based on the favorable recent genealogy, they contribute one of their child-allocations to the family, though with the stipulation that it will have to join their use-caste if it is born perfect. That’s not so terrible a price to pay, they say, spending one’s reproductive years cranking out children for comm and caste, in exchange for the right to be born. The mother agrees.

  Ykka hasn’t shared the protein situation with the comm, of course, or the Breeders wouldn’t be speaking up for anyone. (Tonkee figured it out on her own, naturally.) Ykka doesn’t want to tell anyone, either, until it’s clear there’s no hope of an alternate solution to the problem. You and the other council members agree reluctantly. There’s still a year left. But because of Ykka’s silence, a male Breeder visits you a few days after you bring Tonkee home to finish recuperating. The Breeder is an ashblow-haired, strong-shouldered, sloe-eyed thing, and he’s very interested to know that you’ve borne three healthy children, all powerful orogenes. He flatters you by talking about how tall and strong you are, how well you weathered months on the road with only travel rations to eat, and hinting that you’re “only” forty-three. This actually makes you laugh. You feel as old as the world, and this pretty fool thinks you’re ready to crank out another baby.

  You turn down his tacit offer with a smile, but it’s… strange, having that conversation with him. Unpleasantly familiar. When the Breeder is gone, you think of Corundum and wake Tonkee by throwing a cup at the wall and screaming at the top of your lungs. Then you go to see Alabaster for another lesson, which is utterly useless because you spend it standing before him and trembling in utter, rage-filled silence. After five minutes of this, he wearily says, “Whatever the rust is wrong with you, you’re going to have to deal with it yourself. I can’t stop you anymore.”

  You hate him for no longer being invincible. And for not hating you.

  Alabaster suffers another bad infection during these six months. He survives it only by deliberately stoning what’s left of his legs. This self-induced surgery so stresses his body that his few bouts of lucid time shrink to a half hour apiece, interspersed with long stretches of stupor or fitful sleeping. He’s so weak when he’s awake that you have to strain to hear him, though thankfully this improves over the course of a few weeks. You’re making progress, connecting easily now to the newly arrived topaz and beginning to understand what he did to transform the spinel into the knifelike weapon he keeps nearby. (The obelisks are conduits. You flow through them, flow with them, as the magic flows. Resist and die, but resonate finely enough and many things become possible.)

  That’s a far cry from chaining together multiple obelisks, though, and you know you’re not learning fast enough. Alabaster doesn’t have the strength to curse you for your cloddish pace, but he doesn’t have to. Watching him shrivel daily is what drives you to push at the obelisk again and again, plunging yourself into its watery light even when your head hurts and your stomach lurches and you want nothing more than to go curl up somewhere and cry. It hurts too much to look at him, so you mop yourself up and try that much harder to become him.

  One good thing about all this: You’ve got a purpose now. Congratulations.

  You cry on Lerna’s shoulder once. He rubs your back and suggests delicately that you don’t have to be alone in your grief. It’s a proposition, but one made in kindness rather than passion, so you don’t feel guilty about ignoring it. For now.

  Thus do things reach a kind of equilibrium. It’s neither a time of rest, nor of struggle. You survive. In a Season, in this Season, that is itself a triumph.

  And then Hoa returns.

  It happens on a day of sorrows and lace. The sorrow is because more Hunters have died. In the middle of bringing back a rare hunting kill—a bear that was visibly too thin to safely hibernate, easy to shoot in its desperate aggression—the party was attacked in turn. Three Hunters died in a barrage of arrows and crossbow bolts. The two surviving Hunters did not see their assailants; the projectiles seemed to come from all directions. They wisely ran, though they circled back an hour later in hopes of recovering their fallen comrades’ bodies and the precious carcass. Amazingly, everything had been left unmolested by either assailants or scavengers—but left behind with the fallen was an object: a planted stick, around which someone tied a strip of ragged, dirty cloth. It was secured with a thick knot, something caught in its fraying loops.

  You come int
o Ykka’s meeting room just as she begins to cut open the knot, even as Cutter stands over her and says in a tight voice, “This is completely unsafe, you have no idea—”

  “I don’t care,” Ykka murmurs, concentrating on the knot. She’s being very careful, avoiding the thickest part of the knot, which clearly contains something; you can’t tell what, but it’s lumpy and seems light. The room is more crowded than usual because one of the Hunters is here, too, grimy with ash and blood and visibly determined to know what her companions died for. Ykka glances up in acknowledgment as you arrive, but then resumes work. She says, “Something blows up in my face, Cuts, you’re the new headman.”

  That flusters and shuts Cutter up enough that she’s able to finish the knot undistracted. The loops and strands of once-white cloth are lace, and if you don’t miss your guess, it was of a quality that would once have made your grandmother lament her poverty. When the strands snap apart, what sits amid them is a small balled-up scrap of leather hide. It’s a note.

  WELCOME TO RENNANIS, it reads in charcoal.

  Hjarka curses. You sit down on a divan, because it’s better than the floor and you need to sit somewhere. Cutter looks disbelieving. “Rennanis is Equatorial,” he says. And therefore it should be gone; same reaction you had when Alabaster told you.

  “May not be Rennanis proper,” Ykka says. She’s still examining the scrap of leather, turning it over, scraping at the charcoal with the edge of the knife as if to test its authenticity. “A band of survivors from that city, commless now and little better than bandits, naming themselves after home. Or maybe just Equatorial wannabes, taking the chance to claim something they couldn’t before the actual city got torched.”