The Awakened City

by Victoria Strauss

  “Let’s see the other one.” He scrutinized it. “Cina.” He spoke over his shoulder to his companion. “Have a look.”

  The second man came to peer at Gyalo’s palms. “Where’d you get the other marks?” he said. “Those white ones?”

  “I got into some trouble a few years back,” Gyalo said.

  “You didn’t make them yourself?”

  “Why would I do that?”

  “Wait here,” the second man said. He started toward the cavern. The first sentry dropped Gyalo’s hands and folded his arms.

  “What’s going on?” Gyalo asked.

  “You heard him. Wait.”

  Gyalo stood, trying to conceal his rising apprehension. He had done what he could to alter his appearance, growing out his beard and letting his hair hang down over his face; he could not change his lifelight, but pearl was a common color, and Râvar had only seen him briefly, years ago. But he had not considered his scars. In Refuge, Râvar had seen him cut his hands on the Blood—could he have told his men to watch for a pilgrim with hand scars? Surely not. Râvar might or might not recognize Gyalo if he saw him again, but given the trouble Râvar’s men had taken to make Axane’s kidnapping look like a simple disappearance, there was no reason Râvar should be expecting him.

  The sentry returned, accompanied by an ugly man with cropped black hair and an unmistakable air of authority. There was something peculiar about him as he approached; with a small shock, Gyalo realized that he did not seem to have a lifelight.

  “Show me your hands, pilgrim.”

  Gyalo obeyed. The man took Gyalo’s hands and examined them—the palms, then the backs, then the palms again. His own palms were bandaged, the cloth stained pinkish brown, as if with the seepage of some sort of skin disease. Otherwise, he was fastidiously neat and clean; Gyalo could not smell even the tang of sweat. Close to, it was apparent that he did have a lifelight, but a dimmer one than Gyalo had ever seen, the merest night blue shadow around his body.

  “How did you get these scars?” He had a beautiful voice, a rich baritone that contrasted oddly with his lumpy features.

  “It’s not a tale that does me credit, sir.” Gyalo had concocted this story soon after he began scribing, for his customers sometimes asked about his hands. “I borrowed money a few years ago to set up my business. It was more than I could afford. When the time came, I couldn’t pay it all. The man I owed had my hands cut with a razor.”

  “A razor, eh.” The man’s dark eyes had an odd metallic sheen. “That must have been painful.”

  “It hurt like fire, sir. I couldn’t work for two weeks.”

  “What is your work?”

  “I am—I was—a scribe, sir.”

  “A scribe. Hmmm.” He dropped Gyalo’s hands and stepped back, folding his own bandaged hands at his waist. “You know of the Next Messenger’s scars, do you not?”

  “Yes, sir. The scars made by the Blood of rata—” And all at once Gyalo understood.

  “When he carried it out of the Burning Land, yes. A reminder of his Messengerhood to all who see him, and also of the fact that rata chose to clothe the divine Messenger in human flesh. There are pilgrims who arrive not simply with the mark we require of the faithful, but with other scars, in imitation of the Messenger’s own. We prize devotion, even sacrifice. But to mimic the Messenger is blasphemy. Those who show such marks are turned away. But I do believe you came by your scars as you say, for it’s clear they are old. Be welcome in the Awakened City … what’s your name, pilgrim?”

  “Timpurin, sir.”

  “Be welcome in the Awakened City, Timpurin. I am Ardashir, the First Disciple. The Messenger is the ruler of our souls, but in this place and by his will I command all else.”

  It seemed to demand a bow, so Gyalo gave him one.

  “Cina.” Ardashir flicked a glance at the sentry who had fetched him. “Escort our new citizen inside and find him a place.”

  “Thank you, sir.” Gyalo bowed again.

  Ardashir departed, striding swiftly back the way he had come. The other sentry sat down on his mat again.

  “Come along, citizen,” said Cina. “I haven’t got all day.”

  Gyalo hurried to catch him up. Below, Ardashir was already passing inside the cave, whose interior, viewed from the sunlit path, seemed as black as the night sky. Like the sky, it was strewn with light: the spectral hues of lifelights, the red glint of fire. The perspective expanded as they descended, rolling back into the ridge as if the cavern had no end.

  “Why do they call him the First Disciple?” Gyalo asked.

  “Because that’s what he is.” Cina was a leathery man with a yellow lifelight and manacle marks at his neck and wrists—perhaps one of Râvar’s original prisoner-followers. “After the Next Messenger brought down the walls of Thuxra City he fell unconscious, and the Blood of rata slipped from his hands. Ardashir caught it before it could touch the ground. It cut him deep. The cuts have never closed. You saw the bandages. It’s a great suffering for him.”

  “Why have the cuts not closed?”

  “Because human flesh can’t bear the touch of the divine Blood. The Messenger’s flesh is also human, but he’s filled with rata’s divinity just like the Blood is, so his wounds healed. They scarred, though, they scarred terribly. You’ll see for yourself.”

  The cavern’s chill came out to meet them. They passed through its great mouth; looking up at that perfect curve, gleaming with the distinctive gloss of Shaper stoneworking, Gyalo could not suppress a tremor of awe at the power that could shape such a thing. The cave’s interior was even more enormous than the view from outside had suggested—at least five or six times the width of the entrance, and so long that Gyalo could discern its far end only as a point where there were no more lights. The ceiling seemed to rise much of the height of the ridge. Other than a broad clear space at the approximate midpoint, which ran like a roadway toward the rear, every inch of floor was occupied by pilgrim encampments. Axane’s Dreams had prepared Gyalo for the vastness of this place, but still the reality was stunning. How many people were here? Fifteen hundred? Two thousand? More?

  “You must have heard stories.” Beside him, Cina was grinning at his amazement. “But I’ll wager you never imagined anything like this.”

  “No,” Gyalo said. “Not like this.”

  Cina led him into the dim regions beyond the sun-bright entrance. The air grew colder, the odor of smoke and unwashed humanity stronger. Gyalo’s Shaper senses read the patterns of the rock—its structure, which he recognized as limestone, the subtler configurations that spoke of the proliferating complex of caves beyond this one, thrusting back and down within the ridge. How many others were inhabited? The perimeters of the pilgrim settlements were neatly marked with stones or mats or bundles of grass; they were sparse but very tidy, blankets folded, bags and boxes stacked, cooking and eating utensils carefully stowed. Many were empty, but lifelights glinted here and there, and heads turned as Gyalo and Cina passed, though without much interest. New pilgrims must be a common sight.

  Cina delivered Gyalo to a spot near the cavern’s eastern wall, where the arrangement of two settlements had left a gap.

  “You can set up your own cook fire here,” he said, “or find a fire to share, whatever suits you. Ask someone to show you where to go for food—the Messenger provides for us, praise his name, but his bounty isn’t endless, so there’s a daily ration. In a day or two you’ll be assigned to a work group. I hope you’re ready to work. Everyone in the Awakened City does.”

  “I’m ready.”

  “The First Disciple likes to give a talk to new citizens, just to let them know what’s what, and then the Next Messenger receives and blesses them. He usually waits till there’s a group. You’re the first to get here in a week, so you won’t have your blessing right away.”

  That was a stroke of luck. Gyalo thou
ght of the pilgrim band in Fashir, several days behind by now. Maybe he would be gone by the time they arrived.

  Axane, he thought.

  “Don’t worry, though,” Cina was saying. “You won’t have to wait long. So. Any questions?”

  “No,” Gyalo said. “Thank you.”

  “Be welcome in the Awakened City …” Cina searched his memory. “Timpurin.”

  He departed. Gyalo swung his pack off his back and set it down. He was close to the cavern’s rear, deep within its perpetual dusk. The distant arch of the entrance was blindingly bright by contrast. Around him spread the settlements, angled together like the chips of a mosaic. The noise of human activity barely challenged the innate silence of the vast space. I’m here, he thought. He felt a surge of exhilaration. He was not happy about the attention his arrival had drawn. But the first obstacle had been conquered: He was inside.

  Several settlements along, a man with a rippling topaz lifelight crouched over the embers of his fire, coaxing it to a blaze. Gyalo picked up his pack and approached. “Great is rata, great is his Way,” he said. “Greetings, citizen.”

  The man looked around. “His wakened Way.”

  “What?”

  “We use a different form of the greeting here. Great is rata. Great is his wakened Way.”

  “I’m sorry. I’ve only just arrived.”

  “Yes, I saw you come in.”

  “My name is Timpurin. I was wondering if perhaps I could share your fire.”

  The man regarded him. He looked to be in his fifties, his face lined, his gray hair cropped short. “You’re from one of the other kingdoms,” he said. “Not Arsace.”

  “I was born in Chonggye, but Ninyâser is my home. Was my home.”

  The man nodded. “There are others like you here. We’re from all the kingdoms of Galea, we citizens of the Awakened City, and from none of them. We make our own kingdom, a new kingdom for a new age. Fourteen hundred and seventy-six at last census, praise rata.” He made the god’s sign, then smiled, his cheeks creasing. “Well, why not? As long as the others don’t mind. There’s five of us. We stick together, and share what we’ve got. My name’s Gaubanita.”

  “Thanks, Gaubanita. I’ve got something to share.” Gyalo dug into his pack for the provisions he had packed yesterday for authenticity’s sake. “It’s the last of what I brought with me.”

  “Meat!” Gaubanita took it eagerly. “That’s welcome. Mostly we eat wheat and rice.” He indicated a bag that sat nearby, amid an orderly array of containers and utensils. “It’s filling, but after four months that’s all the good I can say of it. Still, I shouldn’t complain. How many people can say they eat divine food every day?”

  “Divine food?”

  “Made by the Messenger himself.” Again Gaubanita made the sign of rata. “Praise his beloved name. He provides for us, like a father for his children. He makes the grain, and the salt, and the fruit that keeps us from the mouthrot sickness, a different kind every week. He eats it, same as us. He could dwell in a palace and have servants to set him out a feast every morning, noon, and night, but he lives like we do, and he works like we do. You’ll see, Timpurin. Whatever you’ve heard while you were journeying here, it’s nothing to the truth.”

  “rata be praised.”

  Gyalo sat down on his bedroll. Gaubanita tossed handfuls of grain into the pot he had set to boil, adding salt from another bag and tearing apart and incorporating Gyalo’s strips of dried meat. The others who shared the settlement returned, and Gaubanita made introductions. They were the usual odd assortment: a pair of brothers from a farm in northern Arsace, a shoemaker from Ninyâser, a temple artist from one of the expatriate Arsacian communities in Haruko. Like their little encampment, they were neat and clean, their hair combed and their beards trimmed. The shoemaker seemed put out by Gyalo’s presence, but the others were friendly.

  They settled around the fire to eat. The pilgrims wanted to know about Gyalo’s conversion, and he obliged with the tale he had told others, borrowed from the boy who had come to him for the letter. They offered their own stories. The brothers, taking goods to market, had heard one of Râvar’s missionaries proselytizing in the town square; they made their minds up there and then to seek the Awakened City, and set out without ever returning home. The artist had been brought by a friend to a secret assembly of faithful; he had dismissed their message but was drawn to return again and again, until he could no longer deny the belief that had awoken in him. Gaubanita, sole survivor of the fire that destroyed his cookshop and killed his family, had encountered a missionary at the end of a long quest for spiritual relief. “My soul was still burning,” he said simply, “and his words were water.”

  Gyalo heard also what they did not say: the brothers’ desire to escape the grinding labor and poverty of their family farm, Gaubanita’s flight from grief, the artist’s thwarted dreams of greatness, which Râvar’s promises of glory in the afterlife allowed him to shape anew. Such shadow-motives stood behind nearly every pilgrim tale he had ever heard—something hidden or unexpressed, something they could not confess or were desperate to deny. Only the shoemaker, a scowling man with a shimmering plum-colored lifelight, appeared to have no deeper motive. “I always knew their evil would wake rata up,” he said of the Caryaxists. “I’ve been waiting for the Next Messenger ever since those bastards fell.”

  They were eager to answer Gyalo’s questions about the Awakened City, of which they were obviously very proud, and even more eager to speak about Râvar: his compassion and his beauty, the stirring ceremonies he conducted, the many wonders he had worked in the caverns and elsewhere. They talked of his arrival from the Burning Land as if they had actually witnessed it, and told the tale of Thuxra City’s destruction in words that had the formality of scripture, trading the phrases back and forth between them. Râvar was no legend to these men: They saw him daily in the flesh. Yet they displayed the same half-tranced, almost childish wonder as the pilgrims along the Waking Road, to whom he was still only a dream, a promise.

  “When he looks at you, you can feel it,” one of the brothers said, describing the audience he had recently been granted. “When he blesses you it’s like fire shooting through you. He puts light on your skin.” He touched a spot between his eyes. “Just here.”

  “He gives us gifts.” The other brother rummaged in his pocket and pulled out a palmful of colored stones. “At every ceremony he lifts his arms, and there’s a sort of thunderclap, and they just come raining down. There’s rubies here. Real rubies!” Gyalo leaned to look, but the boy snatched his hand away. “If you want some, you’ll have to get your own.”

  “Does the Messenger have a companion?” Gyalo asked. “Does he consort with women?”

  The artist drew back, affronted, but the brothers sniggered and Gaubanita smiled. “The Next Messenger is human,” he said. “As well as divine. He hungers and sleeps and even can be wounded, just like us. But that need he doesn’t seem to have.”

  “Or else he hasn’t found the proper one to answer it,” the shoemaker said.

  “So there’s no woman who accompanies him? No woman he keeps for himself?”

  “Oh, so it’s that way with you, is it?” The shoemaker laughed unpleasantly. “Well, you won’t be the first. Half those who ask for audiences have that in mind, and half of them are men.”

  “Even though his seed is fire,” said the younger brother, nodding. “They’d let themselves be burned up, just to lie with him.”

  “Don’t be stupid,” his sibling said. “He’s made like we are, bones and flesh and blood, and seed as well.”

  “It’s foolish to argue about such things,” Gaubanita said. “None of us will ever know, and that’s a fact.”

  “I was wondering,” Gyalo said. “Down on the steppe, I saw a pair of coaches, and vowed ratists with tattoos.”

  “Ah yes,” Gaubanita said. “The gua
rdians of the Brethren.”

  “I was wondering why they’re here.”

  “Why, because the Brethren are here.”

  Gyalo nearly dropped his bowl. “What?”

  “They arrived four days ago. The Son Vivaniya and the Daughter Sundit. They are the Messenger’s guests.”

  “The Brethren,” Gyalo said, trying to get his mind around it. “Are here?”

  “Didn’t he just say so?” the artist demanded.

  “You shouldn’t be so surprised,” Gaubanita said gently. “Doesn’t the Messenger teach that the Brethren will bow down to him and yield to him the leadership of the church during the holy time of Interim? Why shouldn’t they seek him out, even before he begins his glorious march upon Baushpar?”

  The Brethren. Not their representatives—the Brethren themselves. Vivaniya, who had been present at Refuge’s destruction. Sundit, who had been one of the few to speak for Gyalo when he returned from the Burning Land.

  “You don’t look well, citizen,” the artist said. “Anyone would think you’d had bad news.”

  The brothers, too, were staring at him. But the shoemaker, who all this time had not relaxed his hostile scowl, was grinning.

  “I know what his problem is,” he said. “He’s like me. That’s it, isn’t it, Timpurin?”

  “I—”

  “Go on, you can admit it. We’re free men here. You can say you hate their ash-cursed guts. You can say you’d rather the Messenger had sealed the Awakened City up than let their cowardly betraying carcasses inside.”

  “Burn it, Obâna, we’re sick of that kind of talk,” said the artist with some heat. “You know the rest of us don’t feel the same.”

  “Well, Timpurin does. Don’t you, Timpurin?” Obâna clapped him on the shoulder. “Excellent. A man who sees things the way I do.”

  “The Messenger does as he wills,” said Gaubanita quietly. “We only follow.”

  The artist got to his feet. “I’m going back to work.”