Ashes of the Sun

by Django Wexler

  “You’re missing a stamp,” the older soldier said, waving the paper. “Ministry of Trade.”

  “I believe I have that one,” Jaedia said.

  “It’s out of date.” He showed her the paper. “Got to get the Trade stamp after the Road and Commerce stamp, see? Otherwise you could change what you were carrying and Trade wouldn’t know any better. Very important. You’ll have to go and get it, then come back.”

  The thought of waiting through the line again put Maya on the brink of deciding to set the soldiers on fire after all, but Jaedia only took the papers back from the man, frowned at them, and reached into her belt pouch. She handed them back, and Maya saw the green and blue of a wad of Republic thalers go along with them.

  “I think you’ll find,” Jaedia said, “that everything’s in order.”

  “So it is,” the soldier said, not even pretending to read the documents. “Go on through, then. You’re holding up traffic.”

  The boy mouthed something at Maya, who made an obscene gesture in return as the cart clattered forward through the gate in the unmetal wall. Outside, another pair of guards waved them onward, down a rutted dirt road flanked by high hedgerows. The loadbirds picked up the pace a bit, and the cart shuddered and bounced over the uneven ground.

  “Ungrateful bastards,” Maya said, looking over her shoulder at the looming bulk of Bastion. “It’s not fair.”

  “No?” Jaedia held the reins loose in her hands, adjusting the birds’ pace with an occasional low whistle.

  “We might have saved their whole plagued city. Chosen know what Hollis would have done if we hadn’t stopped him.” She shook her head. “And they don’t even know it happened.”

  “You’d like a parade, perhaps? Streets strewn with roses?”

  “A little courtesy wouldn’t be too much to ask for,” Maya muttered. “They treat us like—”

  “Anyone else?”

  Jaedia gave an enigmatic smile. At the moment she didn’t look very much like a centarch. They all wore drab travelers’ garb, dull and practical, with Jaedia and Maya concealing their haken under shirt and coat. But up close, Maya thought no one would ever confuse Jaedia for a peasant. She had thin, delicate features, deep, knowing eyes, and a smile that quirked just so and implied that every conversation was part of a lesson. That smile had been a constant in Maya’s world almost since before she could remember. Jaedia’s patient, leading questions had taught her to read, to ride, to draw her power, to understand the Order, her place in it, and their place in the world.

  Maya loved Jaedia with all her heart. But, she had to admit, there were times when she found her mentor as exasperating as Marn. Well. Let’s not go too far. Nobody is as exasperating as Marn.

  “We’re helping them,” Maya said, trying to clarify her thoughts. “Hollis was a dhakim—for the Chosen’s sake, he was kidnapping people and taking them to bits! Why should we have to sneak out of the city in disguise and bribe some jumped-up night watchman who should be groveling at your feet?”

  “He probably would grovel, if he knew who I was,” Jaedia said. “But out of fear, not out of gratitude. And once we were out of sight…” She whistled, and the birds picked up speed. “How would you feel, if you were the local dux? A centarch comes to your city and says they’ve shut down a dhakim cult, killed a few people, and now they’re moving on.”

  “I’d feel happy,” Maya said obstinately. “And embarrassed I hadn’t found out about the dhakim myself.”

  “You don’t think you’d be a little frightened?” Jaedia said.

  “If the dux hadn’t done anything wrong, he’d have nothing to be afraid of.”

  “Unless the centarch decides otherwise.”

  “But she wouldn’t. I mean you wouldn’t.”

  “And he knows me so well?” Jaedia shrugged. “Besides, what does it gain us to strut around showing off and throw the city into chaos? The chance to skip a queue and save the Order a hundred thalers? Baselanthus can afford it.”

  “I know.” Maya leaned back against the bench. “It’s still not fair.”

  “Life isn’t fair, Maya.” Jaedia’s expression was suddenly serious. “Is it fair that some peasant boy out there has to fight off plaguespawn with nothing more than a stick, while you could turn his village to ash by waving your hand?”

  “That’s why it’s our duty to defend him!” This was the most basic lesson of the Inheritance, the book the Chosen had left behind to guide the Twilight Order. They’d granted the power of the centarchs, to be used to defend humanity in the aftermath of the plague. “It doesn’t mean people should be afraid of us.”

  “Listen, Maya. No one is going to cry for Hollis Plaguetouch.” Jaedia frowned. “But there will come a time when you have to hurt someone—even kill someone—to protect the rest, whether or not they deserve it. When that day comes, you’ll understand why we have to hide so often. The Order does what must be done, and it does not win us many friends.”

  Maya swallowed, taken aback. After a moment, she glanced at her mentor, but Jaedia’s face was a mask, her eyes on the road.

  “You don’t hurt people who don’t deserve it,” she ventured.

  “I try not to. And”—she grinned—“I’m pretty good at it. But I’m always ready. You should be too.”

  There was another silence, broken by the chuffing of the birds and the rattle of the cart wheels.

  “Ah, plague it.” Jaedia scratched her short hair. “I don’t mean to worry you. But it won’t be long until you get your cognomen, you know. Then you’ll have to decide these things for yourself.”

  Maya looked down at her hands, feeling a quiet thrill. Not long. She was seventeen—not the youngest ever promoted to full centarch, but well ahead of most. Her hand went to the Thing for a moment. Not long…

  “How long until I get my cognomen?” Marn said from the back of the cart.

  “That depends,” Jaedia said. “Have you got chapter seven by heart yet?”

  Marn groaned, and Maya laughed. The cart rolled on.

  When they reached the turnoff to the forest road, they paused to give the birds a chance to rest. Jaedia cut open a canvas bag of the fat nyfa seeds they liked and scattered them on the ground. The unharnessed animals were soon pecking contentedly after them like enormous chickens.

  Marn, to his vocal displeasure, was hard at work on the devious chapter seven. Maya and Jaedia, in the meantime, were sparring.

  The power of deiat prickled through Maya’s skin, and the panoply field shimmered into existence around her. Jaedia stood at the other end of a small clearing, her haken in hand. Her own panoply was invisible at this distance. Not that she has much need of it.

  Maya raised her haken, and the blade flared to life, a shimmering bar of white fire. At the same time, she let her consciousness expand, feeling the flow of power between them. Deiat coiled around Jaedia, tensed like a cat ready to pounce. Maya drew power of her own, pulling it along the flaming blade. A swipe of her sword sent droplets of fire spattering in an arc across the ground, where they hissed and spat like coals dropped in a bucket.

  Jaedia stepped forward, bringing her haken up, its blade like a roiling bar of solid cloud. It left a misty trail of vapor behind it as she slipped to the left, her stance open, and Maya matched her with a shift to the right. There was a moment of silence.

  Then, as one, they struck.

  When centarchs fought, the contest was always on two levels, blade against blade and power against power, and both were crucial. A contest of deiat was more likely to be decisive, but the tightest, sharpest control in the world wouldn’t help against an opponent who separated your head from your body at the first clash. The combat that resulted felt like trying to turn cartwheels while doing logarithms, or playing chess and dancing a jig simultaneously.

  Blade met blade in an explosion of vapor and twisting fire. Jaedia gave ground with elegant parries, and curving razors of solid wind opened around her like a flower. Maya pulled flame from her sword a
nd wove it into a cage of fire, intercepting the intangible blows. She could feel the impacts, deiat thrashing against deiat, titanic energies grinding into one another. With a thought, she went on the offensive, summoning a snaky, whirling flame that split into four parts and whipped out to strike at Jaedia from unexpected angles. At the same time, Maya pressed the attack with her sword, feinting to drive her mentor against a tree, then hammering her before she could extricate herself.

  Jaedia deflected the assault with her customary grace. Air turned solid as her power brushed it, forming curving shields that let the flames wash past instead of meeting them force for force. She parried a few blows, then ducked, letting Maya’s blade bite into the tree behind her in a spray of flaming splinters. Maya drew a curtain of fire between them, already anticipating the counterattack, and knives of wind shattered against it. Jaedia rolled clear, popping up like a jackrabbit.

  Right where I want her. One of the beads of fire Maya had cast off at the opening of the fight was just at Jaedia’s feet. There was power packed in there, more than was obvious at a glance, and now she let it expand into a fireball that sent an earsplitting bang rattling through the forest and threw up a dense pall of smoke. For a moment, Maya couldn’t see. Did I get her?

  A rush of air drew her attention upward. Jaedia was above her, level with the treetops, a shimmering shield of solid cloud beneath her. She rode the blast up! And now she was descending straight toward Maya, blade coming down in an unstoppable arc with all her momentum behind it.

  Maya did her best, sending curving lines of fire upward, but Jaedia blew through them like a descending comet. At the last moment, as Maya swung her sword desperately, Jaedia twisted midflight, letting the flaming blade pass close enough to her side to singe her clothes. As her cloud-sword came around, Maya felt herself grinning.

  I should have known I couldn’t get to her that easily.

  Her panoply flared, a sick-making feeling of power emptying out of her like water draining from a broken barrel. Maya didn’t even feel her impact with the earth.

  When she came to, the late afternoon sun was slanting through the trees, and the world looked as though it had been dipped in gold.

  Maya lay with her head pillowed in Jaedia’s lap. Her mentor had one hand tangled in her hair, idly letting it run through her fingers like strands of crimson resilk. Maya’s body ached from the drain of the panoply, but for an instant she felt utterly at peace, the summer sun pleasantly warm on her skin. She kept her eyes closed, hoping to prolong the moment.

  “I can tell you’re awake, you know,” Jaedia said.

  Maya sighed and opened her eyes, finding her mentor staring at her upside down. She grinned.

  “I still can’t keep up with you,” Maya said.

  “You’re getting better,” Jaedia said. “It was a good trick, laying traps for me.”

  “You always prefer to dodge instead of block,” Maya said. “So I thought I wouldn’t give you the chance.”

  “Try to disguise it a little better next time.” Jaedia tapped her lightly on the forehead. “And don’t forget that just because someone doesn’t like a particular style doesn’t mean they can’t use it.”

  Maya nodded. Jaedia stared at her for a while, eyes distant, then shook her head.

  “What’s wrong?” Maya said.

  “Just… thinking. About what I said earlier.” Her lip quirked. “How do you feel about getting your cognomen?”

  Maya swallowed. The question had a special meaning among the Order. Ordinary people might have their final name bestowed by their friends, their families, or even their enemies, but it was different for centarchs. The Council assigned them, based on the nature of an agathios’s powers and their standing with their colleagues. When a centarch died, their name would be given to another, a signal of the expectations the Order placed on the new recruit. Jaedia’s cognomen, Suddenstorm, was an ancient one of honorable lineage.

  When an agathios was granted a cognomen, they were accepted as an equal among the centarchs. Save for the twelve Kyriliarchs of the Council, no centarch stood above or below another, and each was free to carry out the mission of the Order as they saw fit.

  I’m ready. Maya fought down her excitement. Aloud, she said, “I’m… not sure.”

  “I’ve kept you away from the Forge as much as I can.” Jaedia’s attention seemed to be far away. “I thought it would help keep you from being dragged into… politics.” She pronounced the word like it was something foul. “Sometimes I wonder if I’ve really done you a favor.”

  “Of course you have,” Maya said. She sat up, rolling over to face Jaedia. “I’d much rather be out here helping people than shut up in the Forge debating doctrine with a bunch of stuffy old scholars.”

  Jaedia laughed. “Of course you would. But you’re going to have to know how to navigate those waters, sooner or later. I’m hardly the one to teach you, unfortunately.” She sighed. “And don’t think I’ve forgotten about your stunt with Hollis. Clearly there are some lessons still to be learned.”

  Maya cast her eyes down. “I’m sorry.”

  “That’s a start.” Jaedia clapped her on the shoulder and yawned. “Now, get up, my lazy student, or I’ll be the one falling asleep next.”

  Maya climbed to her feet, wincing at protests from sore muscles. She followed Jaedia back to the cart, where the loadbirds had settled down for a nap, tiny heads tucked under their wings. Marn was napping too, sprawled in the cart atop the lumpy tarp that wrapped their gear. Jaedia left Maya to prod the boy awake while she hitched up the birds.

  “Marn.”

  “Muh?” he said, opening one eye.

  “What did Math-Eth-Avra say to the Council of Nine?”

  “What?” The boy sat up, blinking. “You made that up.”

  “Chapter seven. That’s what you were reading, weren’t you?”

  “Course.” His face screwed up in thought. “Something about… being doomed?”

  Maya rolled her eyes. “Better hope Jaedia doesn’t quiz you.”

  He scrabbled among the packs and rolled tents for his copy of the Inheritance, and Maya rather smugly pulled herself back onto the bench beside Jaedia. The birds clucked softly until Jaedia whistled them into obedience, and they lurched down the overgrown forest track.

  As the sun went down, the shadows grew longer, until only broken fragments of light were visible between the trees. The track got rougher and rougher, little better than a game trail. The darkening forest closed in around them, trees pressing tight on every side. Jaedia lit a sunlamp with a touch to her haken, and in its brilliant, bouncing light branches seemed to shift and reach like stretching limbs. Maya ducked under one that hung low enough to scrape the cart, and giggled as Marn, less observant, got a face full of leaves.

  Up ahead, the light from the sunlamp outlined the edges of a rocky outcrop, with a few scraggly trees clinging to the top. It looked ordinary enough, but Maya could feel the power flowing under the little hillock. Jaedia touched her haken again, sending a silent command Maya could see as darting wisp of golden light. Part of the rock face slid smoothly aside, shedding a handful of dirt. Within the hill, more sunlamps woke gradually, as though a new day were dawning underground. The loadbirds balked briefly at the threshold, misliking the ancient, musty smell, but Jaedia coaxed them forward with a whistle and a flip of the reins.

  There wasn’t much to the secret space, just a square room, the walls and floor of flat white unmetal, covered with dirty footprints and wheel tracks from previous visitors. Opposite the hidden entrance was a freestanding arch, tall enough for a warbird to ride through and wider than their wagon. It was made of hundreds of thin strands twisted round and round, like a rope woven from spiderweb. At its base it was as thick as a wagon wheel, but it narrowed as it climbed, until at the apex the arch was completed by a fragile-looking thread no bigger than Maya’s little finger.

  The fragility was an illusion, of course. It was made of some variety of unmetal, like most
Chosen arcana, and thus invulnerable to anything short of a direct assault with deiat. This room had been here for at least four hundred years, and unless a mad centarch took it into their head to destroy it, it would exist unchanged for a thousand more. The archway was a Gate, the most important surviving arcana after the haken themselves.

  Jaedia twisted in her seat and sent a command to the outer door, which slid closed as noiselessly as it had opened. The loadbirds stamped uneasily.

  “Maya?” Jaedia said. “Would you do the honors?”

  Maya took a deep breath and nodded. In her mind’s eye, she composed the sequence that would wake the Gate, a brief command followed by a code telling it where she wanted to go. There were seventy-nine known Gates, both inside the Dawn Republic and beyond its borders, though the Council had deemed some too dangerous to use. When she was certain she had it right, Maya touched her haken and sent the command sequence into the arcana. It reached back to her, a questing tendril that latched onto her connection to deiat and began to draw power, like a thirsty taproot reaching a pond. A brief chill spread through her body, dissipating as her power replenished itself. The space under the arch filled from the top down with shimmering quicksilver, like a mercurial curtain falling. When it reached the ground, the ancient arcana sent back the code that meant it was ready.

  Jaedia gave a low whistle, and the loadbirds started moving, squawking curiously as they approached the strange surface. She snapped the reins, goosing them forward, and they were through before the animals had time to panic. Maya always expected to feel something, but the transition was seamless, crossing hundreds of kilometers in the space of a breath. The shimmering surface passed over her, and she was somewhere else, a huge, vaulted stone chamber lit by sunlamps. Behind them was the Gate they’d just passed through, and to either side of it loomed another identical archway, dark and inactive. Three Gates, side by side, though two had not been used in centuries.