City of Miracles

by Robert Jackson Bennett

  She dry-fires again, pulling the trigger, imagining its kick. “All right,” she says softly.

  He takes it back, double-checks the safety. Then he shows her how to lock the bolt all the way to the rear to avoid it snapping her thumb. He explains how she’s going to load it—and she is the one who will load it, he says, he won’t help her do this—how she’s going to take the clip, the brass of the bullets bright and eager, and insert it into the rifle, feeling it give her resistance, until she feels the click. Then he explains how she’s going to let go quickly, the bolt sliding to the front and automatically chambering the top round.

  “That’s it?” she says.

  “That’s it.”

  “I thought it would be harder.”

  “Wars are won by efficiency,” says Sigrud. “The easier a weapon is to operate, the easier it is to train many soldiers at once. When the safety is off, it will be ready to fire. Eight shots. When the weapon is empty, it will eject the clip.”

  She hesitates, holding the clip in her hand. “Should I be nervous?”

  “Yes. It is a firearm, after all. It is a tool designed to do one thing. Just as one might fear a mechanized saw, it is reasonable to fear a firearm. But you cannot let your fear of the thing keep you from operating it, or operating it well.”

  Taty licks her lips, then inserts the clip. She pushes, but not hard enough.

  “Push hard,” he says. “It is a machine. Like you are opening a can of soup.”

  She pushes down harder. The clip slides into the rifling with a loud click. She keeps it pressed down for a moment, then quickly draws her hand away. The bolt smoothly slides into place, chambering the top round. She gasps, half in astonishment, half in delight that she did it.

  “Good,” he says. “Now it is loaded. Keep the safety on. Always point it at the ground. Do not take the safety off unless your field of vision is clear and you are ready to take aim. Do not put your finger on the trigger unless you are ready to fire. All right?”

  “All right,” she says. She’s breathing quite hard.

  “I will stay behind you. Then we will shoot at the cans. From there.” He points. “Fifty yards.”

  “That seems like a long way.”

  He says nothing. He does not say that she will likely never get much closer than that in combat. He does not want her to think about combat—even if this is what he is preparing her for, however peripherally.

  He walks her out to the spot, then stands behind her. “Take your time,” he says, his tone carefully neutral. “This is not a test. I simply want you to understand this machine.”

  “All right,” she says, nervous.

  She takes a lot of time, as he suspected she would. Tatyana Komayd is every bit her mother’s child: raised indoors, to read vast truths hidden in papers and numbers. This is not at all what she was bred for.

  Yet she must learn it, he thinks. If we are to move again.

  She raises the rifling. She stares down the sights. He can tell she waits too long—her arms begin to tire. Then she fires.

  The shot is loud, powerfully loud. It’s also a wild miss, and it startles her so much she falls back and almost drops the rifling. “It hurts!” she says, astonished and outraged. “It kicks so hard!”

  “Keep it snug,” he says.

  “I did keep it snug!”

  “Then keep it more snug.”

  She glares at him for a while, scanning him for any judgment, any condescension. He gives her none. Frowning, she raises the rifling and fires again, this time too soon.

  “Argh,” she says, rotating her shoulder. “It hurts…And I missed again. Why am I missing?”

  “If you had hit one of those cans on your second or first shot, I would have been amazed,” says Sigrud. “We are not here to learn to sharpshoot, Taty. That would be like expecting a person behind the wheel of an automobile for the first time to be able to win a motor race. I want you to learn how the machine works. How it feels and what it does. Nothing more.”

  She thinks about this, then nods. Over the next few minutes, she fires the clip empty. All are misses. But each time she fires, she does so with a little more confidence.

  She fires three more clips, and in the middle of the fourth she finally hits a can.

  “I did it!” she says, amazed. “I hit it!”

  “You did,” he says. It was likely not the one she was aiming at, but Sigrud doesn’t take this victory away from her.

  “Ugh, my shoulder hurts. Will I ever get used to that?”

  “You will,” says Sigrud. “Or you won’t. It’s up to you. Do you want to keep trying?”

  She thinks about it. “Yes.”

  He nods at the cans. “I want you to hit all of them at least once.”

  She gapes at him. “All of them?”

  “Yes.”

  “I thought you said we weren’t going to practice sharpshooting!”

  “One must have a goal if one wishes to practice. You can get a little closer, if you would like.”

  “But…Won’t we run out of ammunition?”

  “Uh, Auntie Ivanya has rather a lot of ammunition. That is not a concern of mine. I want you to know what it is like to hit all the targets.”

  “But my arms are tired.”

  “Then they will need to get stronger.”

  She scowls at him for a moment.

  “Or did you have something else you wanted to do today?” Sigrud asks.

  Growling, Taty spends the next two hours shooting the Kamal. She complains that it’s painful, that it’s exhausting, that it’s frustrating. Sigrud does not disagree—it is certainly all of those things. But each time she complains, he says nothing. He waits, and watches. Each time, she picks up the rifling and tries again.

  She gets both better and worse. She learns how the rifling works, but by now her upper body is fatigued. Yet she must learn that too, he thinks. How to shoot when exhausted.

  Finally she strikes the last remaining can. When she does she cries out, a raw, ragged shout of exhausted victory. Sigrud smiles. “You did it,” he says.

  “Finally,” she says. “Gods damned finally.”

  He raises his eyebrows, allowing this excessive dalliance into adult language to pass. He waits for her to put the safety on, then he takes the rifling and shows her how to eject the clip. “Let’s get something to eat.”

  They sit in the afternoon light and eat black bread and bright yellow cheese. “Mother never let me do anything like this,” Taty says around a mouthful. “She never let me do anything dangerous, or…I don’t know. Fun. You’d think she would have taught me this first.”

  Sigrud shakes his head. “Shara’s life was not easy. It was not normal. And it was not fun. I think she wanted yours to be different.”

  Taty sighs, a purely adolescent movement. “Again. I feel like an animal in a cage being fed by my owners.”

  Sigrud tears off another hunk of cheese. Once more he is reminded that this actually might be exactly what this girl is: perhaps Shara, fearing her daughter’s true nature, penned her in like a wolf in a trap. He has trouble imagining Shara doing anything like that—but people can change over thirteen years. And Shara might have known more than he does.

  “Why were you crying when you first came here?” asks Taty.

  “What?” says Sigrud, startled.

  “When you first came, and Auntie built the fire on the porch for you. I went out to see you, and you were crying.”

  “I…” He puts his plate down. “I was not sure if that really happened.”

  “If what really happened?”

  “I…was having a dream. About my daughter. She…She died some time ago.”

  “Oh,” says Taty. “I’m sorry.”

  Sigrud nods.

  “What was she like?”

  “Young. Smart. Brilliant, even. She read a lot of books. You would have liked her, maybe. At least, I think she was these things. My time with her was very short, and difficult.” He’s quiet for a w
hile. “I did not know her as well as I would have wished.”

  “What puzzles the dead are,” says Taty. She looks away into the wilderness. “They take so much of themselves with them, you’re not even sure who you’re mourning. It’s mad, but I still…I still can’t believe she’s dead. There’s this little bead of belief stuck in my heart that just won’t get crushed up, and it says it’s all fake. Like it’s all theater. Gaudy drama. She must still be alive in this world, only backstage, away from the theatrics. I read the papers, I know what you and Auntie say. And yet there’s this piece of me that knows, or thinks it knows, that she’s still here somehow. It’s not fair. I feel like I can’t really mourn her until that’s gone. Yet it refuses to go.”

  “I’m sorry,” says Sigrud. He smiles a little. “You did well today. When I was young I was trained on bolt-shots and the like, for that was all we had. They were a bit easier on the body than firearms.”

  Taty perks up. “Why don’t you show me how you shoot? I expect you must be amazing.”

  He shakes his head. “I am injured. It wouldn’t be wise.”

  “Oh, please.”

  “No.”

  “Please.”

  “No, Taty.”

  “Just once?”

  Sigrud is silent.

  “What if I toss a can up in the air,” says Taty, shoving the rifling over to him, “and you ca—”

  Sigrud slaps down on the rifling’s stock, stopping it. “No!”

  Taty recoils a little, surprised. “Why not?”

  “Taty…This is not a toy,” he says. “Do you think this is a game? Why do you think I am showing you how to shoot?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Your mother was murdered, Taty. The people who killed her are still looking for you. This I know. I must keep you safe. And part of that means you must know how a weapon works.”

  She stares at him, incensed. “So this was all…This was all…”

  “This was all survival,” says Sigrud. “I nearly died making my way here to you. If the circumstances call for it, I am willing to die to keep you alive. Those are my orders. But you must understand your reality.”

  Taty looks at Sigrud, a mix of emotions pouring into her face: anger, terror, total disbelief. He can tell she’s about to leave, or shout, perhaps. It’s all too much for a grieving seventeen-year-old girl who previously just worried about depreciation and commodities.

  He cuts it off before it can grow. He points to Ivanya’s armory and says, “In that barn are over fifty different types of firearms. During the time we have together, I want you to shoot all of them at least once. You are your mother’s daughter. I know you can face down dangers just as well as she could. But you must learn. You must learn. Your mother did not want this life for you, Taty, but it has found you. And together we must get ready.”

  Taty blinks for a moment, taking this in. Then she bursts into tears, burying her face in her hands. He supposes this reaction is not that surprising—she’s exhausted, and shocked.

  He hesitates before laying his right hand on her back. “You did well today,” he says. “And tomorrow, you will do even bette—”

  Then, to Sigrud’s total shock, she flings her arms around him and holds him tight. The hug causes almost intolerable pain for him, but he grimaces and manages to not let a sound out.

  They sit there for a moment. Then the back door opens and Ivanya walks out. She looks at Taty, holding Sigrud and weeping, then the Kamal on the porch next to them, then the pile of brass casings littering the yard.

  “What…What in hells is this?” she asks.

  “Progress,” says Sigrud.

  Despite everything, sleep comes slowly to Sigrud that night.

  He can still feel it: still feels her arms around him, still feels her tears on his shoulder. A small, frightened girl who badly needs his help.

  He remembers Signe, and Shara, and all the other comrades and operatives he’s lost. He knows beyond a doubt that the same could happen to Taty, to Ivanya, to Mulaghesh. It feels as if sorrow follows him like a fog.

  He thinks of Nokov, laughing in the dark as Sigrud swore Taty couldn’t be Divine: I almost believe you when you say it.

  He remembers Taty, scowling and saying: They go to the regular school. I didn’t. Mother has tutors for me. Had, I guess.

  Sigrud sits on the edge of the bed, rubbing his face.

  Little Tatyana Komayd, raised in captivity, far from her natural environment, kept isolated and quarantined from public life.

  Shara must have known, he thinks. She must have known what Taty is. A dreadful idea begins to calcify in his thoughts: Perhaps Shara wasn’t keeping Taty close to her. Perhaps she was keeping Taty close to her black lead—the one thing that could kill a Divinity….

  He shakes himself. That can’t be right, it just can’t be. The girl today felt terrifically human: scared and young, yet strong. Ashara Komayd would not be willing to kill such a creature, not her own adopted daughter.

  He remembers Shara again, twenty years ago, outside of Jukoshtan: Our work asks us to make terrible choices. But make them we shall.

  Sigrud shuts his eyes. He does his best to quiet the many doubts now clamoring in his mind. He tries to crawl back into his sorrow, into his cold wrath, to veil himself with the emotions that have guided him through so much of his life, and seemed to give him the license to do so many things he did not wish to do.

  I must find the Salim. I must find out what they are and how they work. I must find out, and soon.

  Another day, then another. Each day Sigrud practices with Taty in the wilderness, focusing on pistols now. Sometimes Ivanya helps—“He is training you to shoot like a three-hundred-pound man,” she sniffs once, “so please let me show you how a smaller person would do it before you dislocate something”—but she frequently goes into town to check the telegrams, so it is mostly him and Taty, alone.

  He can feel her growing close to him, desiring his approval, his care, his attention. He gives her only what she needs, just enough to get through the day.

  He realizes he is falling back on his training, acting as a handler would when working a flighty source. He hates himself for it.

  He knows it is the right choice. But he also recognizes that he fears growing close to someone, and losing them again. He can’t crawl out from under the feeling that he is a man cursed to carry death in his wake across this world, death that seems to fall far more on the innocent than the wicked. Though perhaps this is abject self-pity.

  Am I being a professional, he thinks, watching as Taty cleans a revolving pistol, or a coward?

  When Ivanya returns from town that day, she jumps out and doesn’t even take off her driving goggles. She points at Sigrud, and barks, “You. Inside. Now.”

  Sigrud stands, giving Taty the slightest shake of the head to indicate that things are all right. Then he follows Ivanya into the house.

  “I finally heard back from old Mother Mulaghesh,” says Ivanya with a trace of scorn. She reaches into the pocket of her jacket, pulls out a telegram, and tosses it to him. “Though what this means, I don’t know.”

  Sigrud opens it up. It’s extremely short, reading simply:

  SQ QG6596 STOP

  LAST KNOWN ACTIVE SQUARE STOP

  LISTED AS ACTIVE IN 1718 STOP

  Sigrud sits back, scratching his head, and thinks.

  “Well?” says Ivanya. “Does that help you any?”

  “It does,” he says. He sighs deeply. “I will need a map, though. A world map.”

  “But…wait. How could that actually help? It looks like…nothing.”

  “The Saypuri Navy doesn’t use latitude and longitude. It has its own classified compressing system, these large tiles that make up the ocean. Squares within squares.” He taps the first portion of the telegram. “This code is for one specific square—from the first two letters of the code I can tell it is the Sartoshan Sea, south of the Mashev Mountains. Basically, along the border in the ranges
dividing Jukoshtan and Saypur. If I had a map I could get more specific.”

  “So that’s where your boat—the Salim—was last reported active?”

  “If what Mulaghesh says is true, yes—in 1718, two years after it supposedly sank in 1716.”

  “So the sinking bit—that was, what, a cover-up?”

  “I assume so. The ship must have been doing something out there, serving some covert purpose, but I’ve no idea what.”

  Ivanya takes a file out of a small satchel, then sits opposite him. “So now you’re sailing out there to go see?”

  “How can I sail if I don’t have a boat?”

  She shrugs. “I have a boat.”

  “You do?”

  “Certainly. I have lots of boats. I own a small shipping service that operates out of Ahanashtan. Or, specifically, I own a company that owns a company that owns a company…you get the idea. I can get you a boat…if you think it’s really wise to go.”

  He sighs again, deeper. “I…I think I do.”

  She glances at him. “You were told to protect Taty.”

  “How can I protect her if I don’t know what she is? Where I can take her that is safe if I do not truly understand our enemies? I don’t know his limits, his behavior, his desires. This ship, the Salim…It was the genesis for everything. For Shara’s war, for all these Divine defenses—it set off all of it.”

  “So now you’re off to travel the world?” asks Ivanya. She snorts. “It’s absurd we’re even discussing it….How long will it take to get out there? And what kind of boat will you need?”

  “From Ahanashtan to the northern tip of the Sartoshan Sea…That’s no quick jaunt. Over eight hundred miles, certainly. A week or more to get there, at least. And since I would prefer it to just be me on this particular trip, it would need to be a ship that I can pilot by myself. Maybe a forty or fifty foot ketch with a mizzen staysail set.”

  “I won’t pretend to understand any of that,” says Ivanya, “which is why I pay Dmitri to understand boats for me. If you’re really sure of this—if you’re sure this is the way forward—write down your specifications, and I’ll ask him to see if we own something similar. If not, I’m sure he can find one for you.” She takes out a tin of cigarettes and a long, ivory cigarette holder—one of the few aristocratic affectations she allows. “Two more weeks here. Is that really safe?”