The Worldbreaker Saga Omnibus

by Kameron Hurley

  “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.

  14

  “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 ret
urned, 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 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 careful
ly. “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.”